The Internet Archive’s announcement of a National Emergency Library to give students access to reading material during the quarantine has run afoul of a certain Witch.
Courtesy of @Dataracer117 on Twitter:
Not a good look–especially since archive.org is in fact offering Wendig’s books through their lending library–not via direct download.
TL; DR: archive.org is getting these books from the same sources as libraries, which do indeed pay publishers lending fees. There’s no moral difference between checking an eBook out from your local library and borrowing it from archive.org.
Other Twitter users attempt to explain:
Mad at a library. “Old Man Yells at Cloud”
… Over twelve borrows.
Capitalism for me but not for thee.
Where else have I seen oldpub witches waxing hypocritical about piracy? Oh, yes. It was last year when some SFWA denizens actually did pirate one of Richard Fox’s books and then accused him of harassment when he told them to stop.
From Richard Fox by way of Larry Correia:
I am the copyright owner of the story Going Dark. I never gave permission (nor was I asked) for File 770 to distribute that work.
Ellen Campbell edited the Backblast Area clear anthology, she’s not the one that published it, that’s JR Handley.
I don’t know who on the SFWA page made the link to the story public facing. The story was posted in forums for SFWA members to read for their consideration. As the Nebula’s are voted on and determined solely by SFWA members, it really does stretch credulity that File 770 would insist that authors want their work read by the general public for this award. The Nebulas are not the Hugos or the Dragons. This is pretty basic and you’d think a SF site would know the difference.
Those Google drive links have been taken down after my piracy complaint. Did you read that carefully? The Google drive links and the hosted PDFs have been removed following my piracy complaint. I as the copyright holder did not give permission for those files to be hosted or made available to the public. Piracy. Full stop.
Putting up links to pirated material is piracy. File 770 was told that their link (which went specifically to the Google doc and not to SFWA’s page) was pirated and to remove it. Yes, that is piracy by legal definition.
There can be no rational discussion with fanatics. When their books are on loan at an authorized library for the sake of students during a pandemic, the Witches cry piracy. When they are caught red-handed pirating a non-Cultist’s book, they cry harassment. Heads they win, tails you loose.
The only winning strategy is not to play their game. To that end …
Coming soon. Some of the players in today’s comedy of errors may make an appearance, as well.
In the meantime, please avail yourself of archive.org’s extensive collection of digital books, movies, music, and more!
And if you’re in the mood for newer but also free SFF fare, pick up Corona-chan: Spreading the Love now!
I sometimes wonder of some of these people really are just poorly coded NPCs.
Wendig is a poorly something for sure
I'd say each of these folks was originally coded to take a singular place in God's grand design. As the saying goes, God does not make junk. But being free thinking machines with the capacity to self-patch, we are free to install all manner of dodgy nagware and dumb screensavers which are root-kitted into next week. G-I-G-O isn't just a technical truism. Soon, the real code has been orphaned by the malicious patches and lots of people who should be fascinatingly unpredictable Players are saying the same three lines in a loop because they've reduced themselves to bad NPCs.
I'm ever more convinced that Wendig is incapable of feeding and dressing himself.
"Twelve." I'd place even money on the borrower's initials: "CW".
I'm not betting against you!
Science fiction has a rocky relationship with copyright. Whether it is a fanfic writer stealing an author's rights or authors freaking out about used bookstores or even unauthorized bootlegs, the history here is pretty sordid.
They still haven't figured out that you fight piracy with price and convenience, not litigious freakouts.
I'm not fully convinced this was serious and not just a concentrated bum's rush ordered from Macmillan brass.
The Worldcon crowd puffs its chest up about being forward-thinking and against capitalism, but not when it effects the bottom line of their corporate owner.
But it also has the added effect of wiping out competition. All that public domain history? Get rid of that and you can shape the past to your liking.
This is just Kabuki theater for the woke drones in the audience.
The Big 5 can't die fast enough.
I've seen other examples of writers shamelessly e-begging in various tone-deaf and privileged ways, so, while I pretty heavily pushed the Macmillan theory, I do think the quarantine also has writers scared.
"I do think the quarantine also has writers scared."
The oldpub crowd does seem to be spooked. Which is odd, because there are reports from many quarters of a minor book-buying boom. I can attest to it. My business slumped during the 1st week of the quarantine but has since rebounded with a vengeance.
"The oldpub crowd does seem to be spooked. Which is odd,"
I don't think it has anything to do with the business aspects, but the worldview a lot of them hold. This whole thing is a threat to their globalist post-industrialism pushes.
Perhaps they know they're useless and that the book buying public will not be buying their books, not even with lots of time to fill. Watching other people succeed takes grace these folks don't have.
Their anxiety may have two dimensions. On the surface level, they know their whole business model relies on enforcing a paper distribution monopoly. The quarantine guidelines shuttering brick-and-mortar stores are rightly seen as a threat.
I think Ranba Ral ID'd the more existential level. If you've kept tabs on the Death Cultists' social media feeds–which any healthy person can be forgiven for avoiding–the air of desperation and malaise is hard to miss. Last month these people held the uncontested moral high ground. They could effortlessly cancel people with spurious accusations of various -isms.
The flaw in the Death Cult's morality plays is that their demand for racism, sexism, etc. always far exceeds the supply. Hence the need to invent microaggressions and to stage childish hate crime hoaxes even then. SocJus is boutique activism for bourgeoisie kids with too much time on their hands. They came up in the softest, easiest era in recent history, so their civil rights crusader LARP required them to constantly gin up fake crises.
Well, now for the first time, they're staring down the maw of a real crisis. It's a crisis they didn't manufacture for once, so they can't control it. That hasn't stopped them from pulling heels from the audience on stage for their usual kayfabe, but no matter who wears the black hat and mustache, their fabricated villainy pales before Corona-chan.
The blue checks found a nut after all. They're right that viruses don't have passports. That just reminded folks that viruses don't have politics or religions, either. The Cult's hysteria over violations of abstract ritual law sound silly next to the prospect of drowning in your own phlegm and blood.
By the way, I like the cover. It reminds me of those similar books I'd see at the mall book store in the 90s.
Thanks. David Stewart and Adam Smith gave me lots of valuable pointers.
David's videos on book cover construction and font use are excellent!
You ain't kidding! I was a Photoshop noob before watching his tutorials. it took a few weeks of work, but the results speak for themselves.
Brian
Geez Wendig is such an ingrate.
He should be pleased his book was chosen as forvemergency reading list.
I'd be broadcasting the internet archives good work during this pandemic.
And surely the authours gets very little royalties on borrowed books.
xavier
In Chuck Wendig's defence he pretty clear has a serious acquired brain injury of some variety and expecting rationality out of him is a form of bullying. You are picking on the slow kid Brian. For shame!
Attempts to shame me might work if I had any 😉