{"id":1402,"date":"2018-11-25T15:54:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T15:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2018-11-25T15:59:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T15:59:52","slug":"what-if-the-story-really-never-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/?p=1402","title":{"rendered":"What if the story really never ends?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve checked out your Kindle download list recently you\u2019ll have noticed any number of books that have an Update Available<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Writers who work through Amazon they can alter their content at will, using a phone if they\u2019re not too busy making movies with it. I know, because I\u2019ve done it myself, and I think it’s interesting and then some. Oh, not that an author made a minor correction of some sort, but that they could, quite easily. So I have some thoughts, or rather some undisciplined musings suitable for a blog like this.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), I\u2019ve been reading about amateur film re-editing: the creation of essentially new movies out of downloaded commercial films using widely available and reasonably priced editing software. Initially taboo, these products are gaining acceptance even from the first filmmakers, and why not when they often demonstrate exceptional expertise and imagination, reveal new aspects of a work, and overall enhance rather than diminish or cheapen the original?<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s fan fiction, and wow, there\u2019s an exploding universe for you, a wonderland of derivative creativity. It’s the people\u2019s art, sectarian mythmaking on a global scale, electronic Homer –\u00a0 stories the public wants told, just as it often wants the truth to be other than it actually is and pushes back on fact. And the public can do that, because the Internet grants superhuman strength.<\/p>\n

And now books, electronic and print both: text is finally free, liberated from the page, but it\u2019s escaped from the author as well. And what\u2019s to stop the critical reader from downloading and playing around with their favorite author\u2019s precious text? It\u2019s done all the time anyway: reframing a story from a different point of view, writing a sequel or origin story. Why not just revise the thing itself? I\u2019m sure it\u2019s far from perfect and could use some reader refinement. And aren\u2019t all great stories reshaped by the community, the tribe, the country, and now the community of us all?<\/p>\n

And no use getting all hung up on issues of integrity and the highfalutin elitist author\u2019s sacred words. It\u2019s not like the source material wouldn\u2019t still exist, there\u2019d just be other versions, and those in turn would redirect interested readers back to the (probably stuffy and unpopular) original. Okay, maybe.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For books, there are definite obstructions: you don\u2019t need to officially register a copyright anymore, but the Library of Congress still wants mandated copies, and if you do register you can\u2019t make substantial changes to your work. As for Amazon, at the moment you can\u2019t alter more than 10% of your current page count.<\/p>\n

These measures reflect the purpose of intellectual property law. If you make your living writing, filmmaking, or otherwise creating you require protection, granted. But IP laws are also designed to encourage competition and thus inspire continuing invention, and in copyright law there\u2019s such a thing as fair use<\/em>, which takes cognizance of, among other things, whether the use in question is commercial, and its effect upon the market value of the original. These considerations invite negotiation, the obvious and inevitable way forward, the one strategy capable of directing although not halting the coming flood. Good thing, as it would be extremely unwise to curtail the public’s right to tell its own stories. It\u2019s always better when popular myths remain in the light.<\/p>\n

(NOTE regarding Worthy of This Great City: before buying the book please read the Reader Alert on the Home Page, then the full Prologue on the Excerpts page. Or else don\u2019t blame me.)<\/p>\n

Photo credits:\u00a0ActuaLitte, Lecteur ebook + livres papier (CC BY-SA 2.0) \/\u00a0Tim RT, Good Friday (CC BY-ND 2.0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve checked out your Kindle download list recently you\u2019ll have noticed any number of books that have an Update Available. Writers who work through Amazon they can alter their content at will, using a phone if they\u2019re not too busy making movies with it. I know, because I\u2019ve done it myself, and I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[218,215,214,213,217,216,212],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog","tag-amazon","tag-copyright","tag-download","tag-edit","tag-fair-use","tag-intellectual-property","tag-kindle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asmikemiller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}