Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Neil, you're not being too sensitive at all.  People who think they have a
right to make illegal copies of any artistic work just because some bands
(notably the Grateful Dead) do are malicious idiots.  Anyone who makes
copies of an artist's work without that artist's permission should have
their hands chopped off.
  

    
Slipped over and read the Dent forums, (fora?) and the impression I
get is that the people who attended the readings appreciate what a
personal thing the poem was and feel very priveledged for having it
shared with them. It seems to be people who didn't attend the readings
and are jealous of having missed something who are calling for it to be
posted in public.

Personally, I do not want to read it, or hear it. I would feel like I
was reading someone's private correspondence and I am saddened at the
way some fans seem to think they have ownership of anything connected
to the people they claim to admire.

Reg(a fan, but one who respects the difference between public and
private)
  

    
Michael Heck e-mails:

Hello everyone...

Neil, as someone who was at the NYC reading and was fortunate enough to hear
Blueberry Girl performed live, I know for myself what a wonderful, touching
poem that it is and it is certainly not for me to say whether or not you are
being too sensitive, but I just had to write and put in my support for
bootlegging in general (not to bring up the whole Lars v. Napster saga), not
because I want unscrupulous types to make a quick buck off others'
creativity, but because, like so many other things that some might prefer
not to occur, it falls under, as N. put it, rights that are "intrinsic to
any living human". If something is out there people have the right to repeat
it just as they have the right to say or write anything, as long as they
give credit where credit is due and don't make money off the work of others,
and yes I believe I would be within my rights to transcribe the chapters of
American Gods that I heard and put them on the internet, as long as I made
no money off the venture.

I have not done so, and I would never do so, by the way. To do so, I
believe, would be quite disrespectful.

But if my vote counts for anything, I think it is an amazing poem and I
would hate for a disrespectful few to ruin the experience of hearing the
poem performed live for everyone in Portland and LA.

--Mike
  

    
I think the whole bootlegging Blueberry is a tough and unfortunate
situation.  Personally I am not against bootlegging if, like Mike says
the bootlegger isn't making any money off of the product, but far more
importantly that the artist isn't losing any.  This case is different,
in the fact that it is a question of personal nature, of course, and
I'm sure many people will fail to realize that.  I think Morgana's
published-for-benefit idea is a great suggestion, and it might deter
unauthorized distribution.  And I think it is your right to be
sensitive about it.  
  

    

For me it's not so much an issue of rights, I think, as respect- so often,
the tapers claim to respect the artist and the artists work, and then they
go on distributing what the artist wants not distributed. I fail to see how
this is respect, personally.
  

    
Not to mention the fact that while the original bootlegger may not make any
money off it, once it's out there the opportunity for other people to do so
exists.
  

    
Reg, I think that's an accurate assessment, yes.


Mike Heck -- fair enough: you obviously would have a right to
transcribe chapters of American Gods and put them up on the internet.
Although I think you could automatically assume that I'd not want this
to happen.

(If someone actually did that, however, that would be my last reading
ever. I'd stop. I've always enjoyed the idea of putting the people who
come to a reading into a privileged position -- they'll hear stuff and
learn stuff they wouldn't if they didn;t come to readings: it's an
intimate relationship, with a certain amount of trust involved. If I
felt that I couldn't trust the people I was reading to, I'd feel
uncomfortable enough not to do any readings again. Honest.)

And Harper Collins would spend a lot of money exercising their right
to sue you for breach of copyright: they've paid a lot of money for the
right to publish the book. You would be publishing it without having
paid anything. It's not free speech, it's stealing.

Also, if they didn't defend their copyright and mine, those passages
of the book could be considered in the public domain.

Would you, under the heading of "If something is out there people have
the right to repeat
it just as they have the right to say or write anything, as long as
they
give credit where credit is due and don't make money off the work of
others,
and yes I believe I would be within my rights to transcribe the
chapters of
American Gods that I heard and put them on the internet, as long as I
made
no money off the venture" also then have the right to take a book of
mine, say Neverwhere, scan it in to a computer, professionally publish
it in hardcopy form, and give it away, free, to anyone who wanted it?
And would that include the right to put it on the Internet? Against the
wishes of the author? (The latter, incidentally, is not hypothetical
-- I know of at least one book of mine which is fully downloadable and
out there, against my wishes.)

It seems to me that the right to repeat the work of another is
precisely what is meant by the concept of copyright. If I make some
art, I own the right to repeat it -- or to permit it to be repeated. Or
to forbid it to be repeated.

And yes, there are a million grey areas out there. There are some icky
people selling videos of a midnight reading I did in Chicago in 1993
on e-bay. I feel sorry for anyone who buys it, as they're buying a bad
single camera in fixed position tape I was told was an archival thing
for the convention (and I hate to think what the sound is like, or what
my performance was like) but I'm not going to expend any effort in
stopping them: I don't care enough.

...

And really, I don't care one way or another about bootlegging. I
assume it will occur. We're taking a DAT of the tour through the desk,
and the CBLDF may or may not release an official bootleg eventually.
But it won't have Blueberry Girl on it.

There are lots of poems I write that never get read in public.
Sometimes no-one reads them but me, or the person I write them for.
They are funny, sad, weird, whatever. 

The point about Blueberry being transcribed and published is the
astonishing lack of manners, really. I don't have any plans to publish
it, not even as a non-profit book. I'll get a friend to calligraph it
nicely, and it'll go up on Natashya's wall, and she'll read it when
she's old enough, and that was who and what it was written for.

On the flip side of that, I can't imagine that if Sheila or Rocky had
asked me nicely for a copy of it, I wouldn't have printed it out for
them. But it would have been a copy for them, not for posting or for
general distribution.

cranky -- there is that. I remember asking Joe Straczinski if he
minded me posting the script for my Babylon 5 episode to the Compuserve
B5 forum, as there had been a few requests.

"I don't mind," he said, "as long as you don't mind people downloading
it, printing it out, and selling it from booths at conventions for $30
a pop."

So I didn't, and instead we published it as a benefit for the CBLDF,
in an annotated package, for a lot less than $30...
  

    
My problem with the 'it's out there and should be a free right for the
human experience' or what ever way you want to couch it, is that until
you sell it to someone it is still yours.  You own it.  The ideas
belong to you, as does the bleary eyes and rasping throat from too much
caffeine and cigarettes you consumed to get there.  Just because it is
good and your *famous* doesn't mean suddenly everyone has a right to
it.  The whole thing gives me that awful feeling you get when someone
has read your diary or gone through your trash.
  

    
Mike Heck -- sorry if I got snappy: you touched a nerve in the middle
of a period when my nerves were feeling fairly touched about this whole
thing anyway. I appreciated your point, and this isn't the "right to
Bootleg, right to stick bootlegged stuff on the web" discussion.

...

Sometimes it seems to me that if people thought less about rights and
more about manners -- which I tend to think of as respecting the rights
and the opinions of others, life might be a far more comfortable
thing.

Mostly the whole 'we have the right to...' is water off a duck's back,
up there with the "Hey NEiL YOU sucK d00d" posts because I am not
coming to do a reading in the home town of the person posting -- and
considering how far some of the people at these gigs are coming to hear
the readings (Hong Kong is the current winner. And the lady who went
from Dallas to Chicago by Greyhound impressed me no end -- that's
dedication) there are obviously a lot of places I'm not going to be
reading, and it seems to me that the obvious solution is to come, or
not come, not to grumble....

For my part, I give up two weeks of work to do these things, at a time
when Time is the most precious thing I have. I make no money from
them. (Normally I lose money -- hotel and airfare type expenses are
covered by the fund, but I don't make a point of charging them for
everything; they're a charity, and $10 spent reimbursing my New York
taxi fare is $10 not available to pay lawyers). 

Sod it. It's mid-tour, I'm exhausted, and this stuff gets under my
skin... in a week or so it'll go back to being water off an oiled duck
again.
  

    
Amanda -- Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

Shira -  The first is always the sweetest.  *grin*

Re Rights:  It seems pretty straightforward to me, if you didn't
create it, you don't have any rights to it.  

The people who attended the readings got a little something extra
since Neil felt comfortable enough to trust his audience with a gift to
a friend, and giving us previews of his works-in-progress.  So is
there any reason to doubt why violating his level of comfort and trust
will have a chilling effect on future events?  

I'm horrifyed at the thought that someone can feel they would be well
within their rights to share an artist's work as long as they weren't
making a profit. Please, there is more to personal gain than just
monetary compensation.  How about being the first to give others
access? And once they posted the work, can they speak for others who
would have access to the book, record, poem? Are they going to be held
accountable for the behavior of others who might have a more nefarious
agenda?  The internet is global, so how dare anyone circumvent an
artist from benefiting from the fruits of their labor?  The whole point
of having publishers secure a right to a work is to allow the artist
to profit, and if they can't who should?  And why would they bother at
all if they can't feel secure knowing that they will be paid for their
hard labor?

Sure the Grateful Dead didn't mind the bootleggers, that was their
right. The operative words being "their right."  Unless an artist gives
permission, which is why we have copyright laws on the books,
accessing information without paying is stealing. Therefore, anyone who
attended these readings and shares any of Neil's works without his 
expressed permission is stealing. 
  

    
I've always been at sixes and sevens with the copyright.

If it is your livelihood you should be able to control whether or not
people have free access to what you do.  And even if it wasn't, it's
still your words - you should have say into how they go out into the
world.

But at the same time, I get ansy over the idea information, especially
the type that would only be available as a bit on an audiotape or an
article that appeared in a paper that is not local to the person
viewing it, or is out of print, or whatnot, should not be accessible
for people that are interested. 

Maybe it's a librarian thing - one of the concepts they throw at us is
at least in theory, information is the one resource that doesn't lose
it's value when shared; in fact frequently it becomes more valuable.
  
From the reactions I've seen here, I firmly believe that the poem
falls into the 'more valuable if shared' category, but I know that
should be your decision to make.  

I have no solution to the problems of breaking copyright restrictions.
The compromise I have made (and it's not much of one) in my own
situation is to put articles and links to stories that I have found up
on the Dreaming website with the intent to offend no one, and knowing
full well that if anyone emails and requests that the articles or links
be pulled, I will do so.  

Since this conversation is not an article, I am not sure whether I can
pull quotes from it, and so do not, which is not saying I would not
like to.

And yes, I did ask the "Maltzbergian" question, although it was a
direct swipe from the plot of "The Unexpected Man".  The author
character in that did end up speaking to the passenger that was reading
his book about the book (although he never did admit he was the
author), but then if he hadn't, it would have been a very short and
boring play. Which it's not.

I am happy to hear that there is a possibility that this tour will
come out on audio or video eventually.  I hope you decide to keep the
Q&As on it, should it happen; those are joys.

Speaking of, any ideas when we're going to see _Coraline_ in print,
now that you've found an illustrator for it?

thanks,
randi

who should have probably instead sent a question/request/unladylike
beg that even though it was not her birthday and she hasn't seen 8 for
many years, could you please read some of 'Coraline', but knew that by
the time you would have seen it the answer would have been no.

p.s. Yay Silth! Independent bookstores are the best :) 
  

    
p.s.2 - oh, my goodness, Shira, I missed your post when I did the
first read through. Yay! I repeat, he is a lucky boy.  
  

    
Neil, you might have been feeling snappy, but your comments weren't snappy
at all.  They were considered, to the point, and I thought pretty polite.

I don't know what it would take to get you to be rude, and I don't want
whatever it is ever to happen!
  

    
oops -- Shira, seconded. Next thing you know you'll be blinking at
your grandchildren wondering where the time went.

Randi -- Coraline's not my call, I'm afraid. It'll depend on Harper
Collins and how much Gaiman they feelt hey can release without the
market saturating. They may also want to have a book inreserve in case
I'm running late with the next thing (whatever that is).

I wouldn't have read it though. I don't like reading portions of
things -- I'll do it at signing-readings, where it's like giving people
a taster-spoon of ice cream, and I once read all there was of Coraline
to date for a CBLDF thing (mainly because I knew I had to finish it).
The only reading I've done of Coraline was at World Horror in Denver
earlier this year. I started at 11:00pm and finished at 2:00am.... 
Very few people fell asleep, bless them.

Maybe when it's published we'll do something like the St mark's gig,
but for three hours straight through, with the whole book.

Just printed out a bunch of short pieces -- including Martha Soukup's
poem, which someone requested in NY but I didn't have a copy of.

Linda, what's the official Well position on people quoting or
reposting stuff from these topics?
  

    
Official Well policy is You Own Your Own Words.

This means you retain copyright to anything you post, and no one else has
the Well's permission to quote or repost unless they have your permission.
  

    
The WELL doesn't have rights to the material, the posters do (presuming
their posts are their own creations).  Quoting small excerpts using fair 
use and common courtesy goes on sometimes, usually sans hard feelings.  
(In private conferences participants often make further promises and 
arrangements, and sometimes even paraphases is a violation of
understanding between users there.)  

Certainly asking for permission to quote even a small excerpt is 
the best strategy.  And it isn't hard to do.. most of the time, most
wellperns like to be quoted.  For the full explanation of the policy and 
tradition initially expressed as "you own your own words," see the 
WELL member agreement.
            http://www.well.com/member_agreement.html
  

    
        Myself, I've been asked for permission to reuse some of my posts, and
in fact when I get around to writing the script which will incorporate
some great lines from the video conference, I will make sure to get
permission from the posters even to paraphrase.  It's just, as Neil put
it, good manners.
        To play devil's advocate for a moment, I think I understand the
motivations of those who are posting "Blueberry Girl" about.  They fear
ephemera.  They feel no compulsion to post part of "American Gods"
because that's going to be published soon and they'll be able to buy as
many copies as they want and the Library of Congress will have their
copy and the words will never, ever be lost.  However, they can't stand
the idea that this poem was not written to be archived and preserved
forever, it was written for one person as a private gift.  I think
they're afraid of this poem passing out of the world completely some
day.  Maybe they just don't want anybody to have access to "more" Neil
Gaiman work than anybody else, so all the really spooky hardcore fans
can say "I've read _everything_" without someone piping up "Well I
heard the poem and you didn't neener neener."  I think it's really fear
of ephemera, though.  Neurotic archivists, and I won't pretend I don't
really, really understand the impulse.  I just think acting on it is
inappropriate and rude.
  

    
Hmmm.  Interesting point Streak.  Although I think it leans more
towards voyeuristic needed than the fear of its preservation.
  

    
What streak is saying is true and creepy.  Hunters of ephemera want to
own not just those public aspects of one's(say, Neil's) persona, but
also aspects that were never intended to be public. It's more than
rude-- it's kind of Orwellian.
  

    
Orwellian.  You learn something new everyday :P

Neil - How is the tour going?  And what were the questions Rocky was
referring to in post #854?
  

    
From Michael Heck:

Neil, I apologize for touching such a nerve, I was certainly not trying to
incite anything. I do agree that such acts of bootlegging, though some may
be technically within a person's rights, are all acts of disrespect and,
without a doubt, bad manners. And for the record I don't think it is within
my (or anyone else's) rights to reprint or publish Neverwhere, even if I
made no money off the venture, because, as *whispered* said that would be
causing the publisher and the author to lose money, which is the same thing.

Anyway, I hope I haven't contributed to the bad taste in your mouth left
from this experience.

--Mike
  

    
Nini Stadt e-mails from the Netherlands:

Dear Neil Gaiman,
 
In reply to your question "am i to sensitive? about the Blueberry Girl
poem, my anwser is no..
You are not to sensitive, its a normal reaction, you made that poem for a
friend and her baby (ie- Tori/Mark/Natashya), you read that poem as a
favour, if they didn't asked for it, or whatever the favour was for you
reading that poem to them, you prolly wouldn't go 'public' with that
poem. right?
 
My opinion is that some neil gaiman/tori amos 'fans' are too fanatic,
they are 'claiming' their 'gods' as them.
therefor something that you wrote for a friend is considered as theirs.
At least i think that is the reason why they want to see that poem that
badly and show their disrespect towards artist like you and tori.
 
I have to atmitt that my first reaction was like: "i would like to read
that poem cuz its such a sweet thing what neil did for them" but i heard
about your feelings about ppl wanting it to be 'public'  and i respected
that. Its for you and your friends eyes only.
 
I really hope that my fellow ewf/neil gaiman fans will respect your
opinion, and if someone is going to publish the blueberry poem online
(that isnt you) i would like to send you my apologize on behalf of the
ewf/neil gaiman fans.
 
with love,
Nienke Stadt aka aGent dOuble pOo/nini in the dent
 
 
  

    
Vicky e-mails:

Neil - as things stand, I completely understand your viewpoint, as it is
your living and the fact that it is your income is perhaps something to
be thankful for, as otherwise you might not have the time to dedicate to
your ideas and work.  However...doesn't it just make your heart ache for
a time i believe you depicted several times in Sandman...a time when
storied were passed along for free, being one of the few forms of
entertainment available, when a storyteller could walk into a
town/villlage etc and given food and board and great thanks for his
works and entertainment, which would then be relayed to the townsfolk's
children and so on.  Sorry to sound perhaps like a raging socialist (for
god's sake don't give microsoft my e-mail address!), but i honestly pine
for the days when storytellers lived on the merit of their stories,
which were happily available to all.  Perhaps this place only ever
existed in my hopeful imagination, but "Oh wouldn't it be luvverly!"

Vicky
x
  

    
Vicky -- I'm not sure I ever wrote that story (the nearest to it would
be one of Tristran's misadventures in Stardust, and perhaps Sandman
50).

Stories get told for a number of reasons. Oral storytelling tends to
be much more venal and practical than written storytelling: I'm
reminded of the introduction to the ozark Jack stories collection,
where one of the old men telling the stories says that they were told
in order to keep the young 'uns working on the farm -- they'd do all
the work as long as they could listen to the Jack stories; while the
Arabian Nights are a wonderful collection of ways to make an audience
stay and listen and hand over coins to keep you there -- each
cliffhanger, each night, each interruption is there to get you to throw
down your coins so the storyteller will continue. 

Bards and scops tended to have a specific place in a society. Outside
of fantasy novels they don't tend to wander from place to place, their
only reward a place by the fire, food, board and thanks.

...

In Portland. Read Year of the Griffin on the plane. WONDERFUL book --
miles and miles better than Dark Lord of Derkholm, to which it is a
sequel of sorts. And it improves Dark Lord by its existence, much as
the other Narnia books improve LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE.

Diana Wynne Jones is one of the very very few writers who reduces me
to one of the audience. I take off my writer hat and just enjoy what
she does.

...

Nini -- thanks. That's very kind of you.

Michael -- oh good. Apology accepted but not really necessary -- as I
said, it's mid-tour, and I was VERY tired.
  

    
Amanda... the tour's going very, very well. Setting records for money
raised and people and everything.

The questions were from young ladies wondering if they could get to
know me better.