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4/1/08 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minervasoloSo, I wrote an article on UK copyright for the magazine, which was huge and unweildy and a little rambly, so I lopped off the case studies. I'll rework them into an article for next issue (the Lexicon case having gone to court then, which'll help), but I thought you guys might be a little interested in a few examples of extreme stupidity. Sorry about the style; unpolished article can be a little grating, I know. I hadn't really thought that I wrote differently for lj/articles/fiction etc, but I really do. There's not the number of links I'd put into a web thing either, since a paper article full of links tends to be a bit clunky.
The following case study highlights so many different pitfalls of publishing it’s hard to know where to start. Vanity publishing, scam agents, stupid agents, plagiarism... It’s very hard to know whether the author was the victim of a variety of scam artists, or whether she’s a scam artist herself.
Once Upon A Time there once was a hopeful author, Lanaia Lee, who apparently paid an agent to ghostwrite the beginning of her novel. She then paid another agent to have it published on demand (POD, or vanity publishing, with Roval Publishing, which she paid for. She then did rather a lot of interviews so people would actually purchase it (having spent so much money in the first place, so would I). Excerpts appeared all over the internet, and summaries, and author biographies.
And then someone took a good hard look at the prologue. Which, apart from the names, matched, word for every single word, the prologue David Gemmell’s Dark Prince.
Oops.
This was duly mocked on a variety of writer’s blogs, at which point Lanaia Lee’s ‘agent’ turned up to defend her. Aside from the issues with hiring an agent who sends your plagiarised novel to a vanity publisher, hiring an agent who threatens people with not only a whole heap of improbable lawsuits but also highly inaccurate Wicca curses shows a certain amount of naiveté (to be kind). Though it was originally assumed that Lee ‘wrote’ the prologue herself, it was at this point she claimed it had been ghostwritten by another agent, Christopher Hill.
This caught rather more attention than the Wicca curses, because Christopher Hill is rather well known for perpetrating publishing scams. It is not unlikely that he could well have pulled off a scam like this, though it’s up for debate how profitable it would be. If he’d been using the novels he’d been sent by those who’d thought he was a real agent, he’d have been making money at both ends, but using the work of a relatively famous published author is a fairly big misstep. It’s a lot of work for very little money, and some people doubted whether Hill was really involved at all. Some people doubted whether the second agent existed either. Some people doubted David Gemmell’s existence too, but they were more easily proved wrong.
If we assume that Lanaia Lee is truly innocent, then the mistakes she made are as follows:
- hiring an agent without checking his credentials thoroughly first
- allowing him to ghostwrite her novel, which she wrote “because I feel each person has something unique to share with the world and writing is my gift to share”
- having discovered he was a scam artist, not checking the ghost written material
- hiring a second agent without checking her credentials either (aside from the Wicca curses and unprofessional behaviour on message boards, she submitted Lanaia Lee’s work to vanity publishers)
- allowing her work to be published without thoroughly checking out the publisher, since it seems she didn’t realise the implication of using a vanity publisher, or that she even was (or that she shouldn’t have had to pay the agent to do so)
- letting everyone on the internet see all of these mistakes and more, and then objecting to being found out and blaming it on a variety of circumstances with a rather inconsistent story
As far as I know, she hasn’t been sued, but it’s seems to have been a pretty close thing.
Fanfiction is work based on the copyrighted creations of others. It’s not legal, but for the most part it’s overlooked, since it doesn’t damage the original works or the profits made from them. In fact, it tends produce more fans, which makes the original copyright owners more money. Some people (for example, Anne Rice, Laurell K Hmailton and Terry Pratchett) really dislike fanfiction, and for the most part their fans respect that, and don’t write it. It’s all one big happy family on the internet, really and truly it is.
Most importantly, most fanfiction has some kind of a disclaimer at the top, usually running roughly as follows: the characters and situations are not mine, and I am making no money from them. This provides no legal protection whatsoever, since fanfiction very definitely doesn’t fall under fair use, but it’s a nice nod towards the fact that is appreciated.
The disclaimer also points out the two things that tend to get fanfiction writers sued: claiming the work is wholly original to them (i.e. plagiarism) and attempting to make money off it.
Lori Jareo did quite well at dodging the whole plagiarism issue (“The characters in this book are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. The publisher of this book is not affiliated with Lucasfilm.”) but rather fell down on the second, when she published her Star Wars fanfiction Another Hope. It appeared on such websites as Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com. For $20.
Now, Lucasfilm does option out the rights to its characters to carefully chosen authors, in order to produce tie in novels. There’s really quite a large selection of them now, covering the timeframe in the films and extending decades on both sides. They all have something in common, though: Lucasfilm gave permission for them to be written.
Lucasfilm did not give permission for Another Hope to be written, and never would have, because it completely rewrites the plot of the Star Wars films, describing itself as an “alternate take” on the story, in which Luke and Leia’s hitherto non-existent cousins join the rebels and save the universe from the evil empire. Not standard tie-in fare, and not something a company that doesn’t even take unsolicited submissions would touch with a bargepole.
It’s a shame she didn’t try, because that might have averted the whole problem.
Vanity and POD publishers don’t look very hard at what they’re publishing, and booksellers don’t look very hard at what they’re selling (check out the 4/26/06 update, which includes B&N’s blurb for the novel). Of course even that doesn’t matter when you happen to be one of the people who run a POD publisher in the first place (Wordtech Communications). You’d think someone in the publishing industry would have a basic grasp of copyright, and known that “I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book” doesn’t mean it’s not illegal, and that “it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there” is just nonsense. It’s on Amazon. Everyone knows it’s there. Especially if, despite your claims it’s not commercial, you advertise its existence in church newsletters and conference biographies. I mean, it’s not on the same scale as Lanaia Lee’s interviews, but it still heavily suggests you want people to buy it.
The book itself got pulled rather sharply from Amazon and its ilk once Jareo was rumbled. The fact it appeared in the first place it what baffles me, since it suggests that the booksellers didn’t read the blurbs at all. There was some concern that they’d baulk from offering POD books again, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. In fact, judging by the fact Wordtech Communications still exists, it’s fair to say she probably hasn’t been sued; Cease and Desist letters and usually the first order of the day, and frequently the last. Well, unless you’re our final case study...
most of this is probably well known, and the fandom_wank wiki link at the top contains all the information and more. If you don't know whats going on, and want a brief, loose, summary, read on
Meet RDR Books (http://rdrbooks.com/), the case study that really is getting sued. By Warner Brothers, no less. Oh Lord, this is a big one, and it’s still on going (the court case is February 6th). My knowledge of these events comes from the detailed and amusing summaries linked to here. It’s easy enough to check up on the facts on Amazon and various news websites and blogs, though RDR Books’ website provides the most entertaining and condemning read (even if it tends to disappear).
Steve Vander Ark runs the popular Harry Potter website, “The Harry Potter Lexicon”, which has received awards and praise from JK Rowling herself. JK Rowling has mentioned that she intends to do a Harry Potter Encyclopaedia of her own, and Vander Ark has approached her in the past in the hope of collaborating, but was turned down. He’s also stated that he knows it wouldn’t be legal to publish the Lexicon without permission.
In October, RDR Books announced the imminent publication of the Lexicon. On Hallowe’en, Warner Brothers announced the imminent prospect of a lawsuit.
RDR won’t give Warner Brothers a copy of the book, and tell them to print off the website. When Warner Brothers say that the content would not fall under Fair Use, RDR say Warner Brothers haven’t seen the book, and couldn’t possibly know that.
Rowling herself explains why the Lexicon doesn’t fall under Fair Use here. Essentially, it is neither criticism nor education, and certainly not parody; it is a reorganisation and summarising of the books, with no new input. It can be argued that the Lexicon as it appears online does contain a variety of critical essays, but since the authors of those essays haven’t been asked permission to use them, it’s reasonable to assume they won’t be in the print Lexicon (or that the Lexicon is going to get sued by its own contributors). It can also be argued that online, the Lexicon is free, and very clearly unofficial.
RDR go on to claim that denying them the right to publish would be the actions of a police state. Oh, and the following (now deleted) appeared on their website: [image, with the whole wonderfully distasteful nuclea fall out comparison. C&D letters = claiming that Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't so bad, apparently]
You can tell that we’re dealing with the kind of publishers Lanaia Lee’s agent probably networks with, can’t you? It’s a “David and Voldemort” battle, apparently.
A lot of back-pedalling and editing and deleting of discussion ensues, when RDR eventually get a lawyer, but even that doesn’t stop them saying stupid things, or failing to comply with the preliminary injunction to prevent sale of the book (i.e. there are still some preorder links hanging around). If you have too much time on your hands, the court order itself can be found here: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/harrypotter.pdf. The interesting thing it reveals is that Vander Ark himself is not being sued (or not yet, anyway), just the publishers. Who won’t stop going on about how Warner Brothers stole the Lexicon’s timeline for one of the DVDs (timelines based on other people’s work are a hugely iffy area in terms of copyright anyway), that other books with content stolen from the Lexicon have been published, and that it’s Fair Use, honest. Besides, JKR didn’t shut them down, and even praised them, and that’s like giving permission to publish it commercially.
It’s going to court in February, so keep an eye out. If they win, copyright holders are going to have to be much more careful about what they say to their fans, and what they tolerate in terms of fan websites and activities.
Anyway, I just though you guys might find these interesting, since I know a lot of people won't have heard about the Lori Jareo and Lanaia Lee fiascos (unlike the Lexicon, which hit national news). I will rewrite this for the summer issue of the magazine, hopefully incudin the results of the Lexicon case. If you spot any glaring errors, do point them out ^_^
The following case study highlights so many different pitfalls of publishing it’s hard to know where to start. Vanity publishing, scam agents, stupid agents, plagiarism... It’s very hard to know whether the author was the victim of a variety of scam artists, or whether she’s a scam artist herself.
Once Upon A Time there once was a hopeful author, Lanaia Lee, who apparently paid an agent to ghostwrite the beginning of her novel. She then paid another agent to have it published on demand (POD, or vanity publishing, with Roval Publishing, which she paid for. She then did rather a lot of interviews so people would actually purchase it (having spent so much money in the first place, so would I). Excerpts appeared all over the internet, and summaries, and author biographies.
And then someone took a good hard look at the prologue. Which, apart from the names, matched, word for every single word, the prologue David Gemmell’s Dark Prince.
Oops.
This was duly mocked on a variety of writer’s blogs, at which point Lanaia Lee’s ‘agent’ turned up to defend her. Aside from the issues with hiring an agent who sends your plagiarised novel to a vanity publisher, hiring an agent who threatens people with not only a whole heap of improbable lawsuits but also highly inaccurate Wicca curses shows a certain amount of naiveté (to be kind). Though it was originally assumed that Lee ‘wrote’ the prologue herself, it was at this point she claimed it had been ghostwritten by another agent, Christopher Hill.
This caught rather more attention than the Wicca curses, because Christopher Hill is rather well known for perpetrating publishing scams. It is not unlikely that he could well have pulled off a scam like this, though it’s up for debate how profitable it would be. If he’d been using the novels he’d been sent by those who’d thought he was a real agent, he’d have been making money at both ends, but using the work of a relatively famous published author is a fairly big misstep. It’s a lot of work for very little money, and some people doubted whether Hill was really involved at all. Some people doubted whether the second agent existed either. Some people doubted David Gemmell’s existence too, but they were more easily proved wrong.
If we assume that Lanaia Lee is truly innocent, then the mistakes she made are as follows:
- hiring an agent without checking his credentials thoroughly first
- allowing him to ghostwrite her novel, which she wrote “because I feel each person has something unique to share with the world and writing is my gift to share”
- having discovered he was a scam artist, not checking the ghost written material
- hiring a second agent without checking her credentials either (aside from the Wicca curses and unprofessional behaviour on message boards, she submitted Lanaia Lee’s work to vanity publishers)
- allowing her work to be published without thoroughly checking out the publisher, since it seems she didn’t realise the implication of using a vanity publisher, or that she even was (or that she shouldn’t have had to pay the agent to do so)
- letting everyone on the internet see all of these mistakes and more, and then objecting to being found out and blaming it on a variety of circumstances with a rather inconsistent story
As far as I know, she hasn’t been sued, but it’s seems to have been a pretty close thing.
Fanfiction is work based on the copyrighted creations of others. It’s not legal, but for the most part it’s overlooked, since it doesn’t damage the original works or the profits made from them. In fact, it tends produce more fans, which makes the original copyright owners more money. Some people (for example, Anne Rice, Laurell K Hmailton and Terry Pratchett) really dislike fanfiction, and for the most part their fans respect that, and don’t write it. It’s all one big happy family on the internet, really and truly it is.
Most importantly, most fanfiction has some kind of a disclaimer at the top, usually running roughly as follows: the characters and situations are not mine, and I am making no money from them. This provides no legal protection whatsoever, since fanfiction very definitely doesn’t fall under fair use, but it’s a nice nod towards the fact that is appreciated.
The disclaimer also points out the two things that tend to get fanfiction writers sued: claiming the work is wholly original to them (i.e. plagiarism) and attempting to make money off it.
Lori Jareo did quite well at dodging the whole plagiarism issue (“The characters in this book are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. The publisher of this book is not affiliated with Lucasfilm.”) but rather fell down on the second, when she published her Star Wars fanfiction Another Hope. It appeared on such websites as Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com. For $20.
Now, Lucasfilm does option out the rights to its characters to carefully chosen authors, in order to produce tie in novels. There’s really quite a large selection of them now, covering the timeframe in the films and extending decades on both sides. They all have something in common, though: Lucasfilm gave permission for them to be written.
Lucasfilm did not give permission for Another Hope to be written, and never would have, because it completely rewrites the plot of the Star Wars films, describing itself as an “alternate take” on the story, in which Luke and Leia’s hitherto non-existent cousins join the rebels and save the universe from the evil empire. Not standard tie-in fare, and not something a company that doesn’t even take unsolicited submissions would touch with a bargepole.
It’s a shame she didn’t try, because that might have averted the whole problem.
Vanity and POD publishers don’t look very hard at what they’re publishing, and booksellers don’t look very hard at what they’re selling (check out the 4/26/06 update, which includes B&N’s blurb for the novel). Of course even that doesn’t matter when you happen to be one of the people who run a POD publisher in the first place (Wordtech Communications). You’d think someone in the publishing industry would have a basic grasp of copyright, and known that “I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book” doesn’t mean it’s not illegal, and that “it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there” is just nonsense. It’s on Amazon. Everyone knows it’s there. Especially if, despite your claims it’s not commercial, you advertise its existence in church newsletters and conference biographies. I mean, it’s not on the same scale as Lanaia Lee’s interviews, but it still heavily suggests you want people to buy it.
The book itself got pulled rather sharply from Amazon and its ilk once Jareo was rumbled. The fact it appeared in the first place it what baffles me, since it suggests that the booksellers didn’t read the blurbs at all. There was some concern that they’d baulk from offering POD books again, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. In fact, judging by the fact Wordtech Communications still exists, it’s fair to say she probably hasn’t been sued; Cease and Desist letters and usually the first order of the day, and frequently the last. Well, unless you’re our final case study...
most of this is probably well known, and the fandom_wank wiki link at the top contains all the information and more. If you don't know whats going on, and want a brief, loose, summary, read on
Meet RDR Books (http://rdrbooks.com/), the case study that really is getting sued. By Warner Brothers, no less. Oh Lord, this is a big one, and it’s still on going (the court case is February 6th). My knowledge of these events comes from the detailed and amusing summaries linked to here. It’s easy enough to check up on the facts on Amazon and various news websites and blogs, though RDR Books’ website provides the most entertaining and condemning read (even if it tends to disappear).
Steve Vander Ark runs the popular Harry Potter website, “The Harry Potter Lexicon”, which has received awards and praise from JK Rowling herself. JK Rowling has mentioned that she intends to do a Harry Potter Encyclopaedia of her own, and Vander Ark has approached her in the past in the hope of collaborating, but was turned down. He’s also stated that he knows it wouldn’t be legal to publish the Lexicon without permission.
In October, RDR Books announced the imminent publication of the Lexicon. On Hallowe’en, Warner Brothers announced the imminent prospect of a lawsuit.
RDR won’t give Warner Brothers a copy of the book, and tell them to print off the website. When Warner Brothers say that the content would not fall under Fair Use, RDR say Warner Brothers haven’t seen the book, and couldn’t possibly know that.
Rowling herself explains why the Lexicon doesn’t fall under Fair Use here. Essentially, it is neither criticism nor education, and certainly not parody; it is a reorganisation and summarising of the books, with no new input. It can be argued that the Lexicon as it appears online does contain a variety of critical essays, but since the authors of those essays haven’t been asked permission to use them, it’s reasonable to assume they won’t be in the print Lexicon (or that the Lexicon is going to get sued by its own contributors). It can also be argued that online, the Lexicon is free, and very clearly unofficial.
RDR go on to claim that denying them the right to publish would be the actions of a police state. Oh, and the following (now deleted) appeared on their website: [image, with the whole wonderfully distasteful nuclea fall out comparison. C&D letters = claiming that Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't so bad, apparently]
You can tell that we’re dealing with the kind of publishers Lanaia Lee’s agent probably networks with, can’t you? It’s a “David and Voldemort” battle, apparently.
A lot of back-pedalling and editing and deleting of discussion ensues, when RDR eventually get a lawyer, but even that doesn’t stop them saying stupid things, or failing to comply with the preliminary injunction to prevent sale of the book (i.e. there are still some preorder links hanging around). If you have too much time on your hands, the court order itself can be found here: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/harrypotter.pdf. The interesting thing it reveals is that Vander Ark himself is not being sued (or not yet, anyway), just the publishers. Who won’t stop going on about how Warner Brothers stole the Lexicon’s timeline for one of the DVDs (timelines based on other people’s work are a hugely iffy area in terms of copyright anyway), that other books with content stolen from the Lexicon have been published, and that it’s Fair Use, honest. Besides, JKR didn’t shut them down, and even praised them, and that’s like giving permission to publish it commercially.
It’s going to court in February, so keep an eye out. If they win, copyright holders are going to have to be much more careful about what they say to their fans, and what they tolerate in terms of fan websites and activities.
Anyway, I just though you guys might find these interesting, since I know a lot of people won't have heard about the Lori Jareo and Lanaia Lee fiascos (unlike the Lexicon, which hit national news). I will rewrite this for the summer issue of the magazine, hopefully incudin the results of the Lexicon case. If you spot any glaring errors, do point them out ^_^
