Luna’s Prose Ramblings

Free Press, part of Simon & Schuster, has bought the rights to the memoir Last Words that George Carlin was working on before his death in 2008. Publication is set for November of this year.

Author and Wired editor, Chris Anderson got himself in a bit a pinch when the Virginia Quarterly Review analysed his new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, for review and found that Anderson had lifted a number of passages from uncredited sources, amongst them Wikipedia.

When asked for comment on the situation, Anderson replied that the outcome was unintentional. While both he and his publisher, Hyperion, say that sources were originally credited in footnotes, it seems that when deciding against using that structure in the book and changing it to an in-line crediting lay-out, neither Anderson nor his publishers found a way to satisfy Wikipedia’s crediting policy and unintentionally omitted the references altogether.

When reading Creative Commons’s explanation of Wikipedia’s Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence, it states that it will allow others to “remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms”. The terms Wikipedia has set for the use of its article are attribution, sharing alike, if need be indication that the original work has been modified and release under identical license of the original work accompanied by a notice of such license.

This last one of course could find Anderson and his publishers in a quandary. If part of the book is adapted from material under a CC-BY-SA license, the parts or whole that contain that passage will also need to be published under the same license. If I understand the licensing agreement correctly, Anderson would be permitted to commercialise his writing, however, he would still have to publish his work under a Share-Alike license. And I doubt that he would want that. The publishers have indicated that the book will be re-edited to include all appropriate attributions, but even so, Anderson should have paraphrased the original sources or in lieu of that used quotes and block quotes. The issue whether or not Anderson committed plagiarism is difficult, but at least he practices what he preaches; Free is Free.

The economic downturn and changing book consumerism leave some university and society presses in difficult situations.

Last April, the Minnesota Historical Society Press spoke to Publisher’s Weekly about their plans in accordance with the state’s cut on the society’s budget. The Press will discontinue four out of eleven positions within their ranks and the publishing volume will be reduced with around thirty percent. The Minnesota Historical Society Press released thirty titles last year.

But the straggling continues elsewhere. A 40-million dollar cut in funding for Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge threatens LSU Press with severe consequences. According to Ben Mann, professor of mass communication at the university, LSU press relies on an estimated two percent of the 40-million cut to stay afloat, while the press’ director Mary Katherine Callaway says that a worst-case scenario of the press not receiving any budgetary support would leave them with ‘really tough decisions’.

Michael V. Martin, chancellor of LSU Baton Rouge campus, released a written statement saying that the university’s first priority is protecting its academic core. That seems to suggest that the question for each and every university is whether it considers their press to be part of that core. Chances are that as it stands, reputation and renown are not enough of an value asset for institutions trying to mend their financial gaps and no university press should want to rely on their reputation alone for survival.

The guys at podiobooks.com have posted a masterly opinion piece on why they think the publishing industry is broken. Most of you know that I am a fervent audiobook listener and would like to have a dead-tree as well as a audio version of just about any book.

So steal yourself a moment and take the time to discover the medium of audiobook, podcast and podiobook, you will be amazed.

Luna recommends;

LibriVox

Podiobooks