copyfight – Page 8

Dan Carlin’s Common Sense #217 – The Big Ketchup Show

SFFaudio Online Audio

Common Sense with Dan Carlin The latest Dan Carlin’s Common Sense episode, #217 – The Big Ketchup Show, has Carlin asking tough questions and proffering incredibly reasonable answers. |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/dancarlin/commonsense?format=xml

Carlin’s take on SOPA is both surprising and insightful. He also talks about the latest U.S. presidential jockeying and a number of other recent items in the news. But the most enduring takeaway, at least for me, was his argument with regard to the “mistreatment of enemy dead by U.S. soldiers” – As Carlin points out the reasons for the controversy and compares it to the Collateral Murder video promulgated by Wikileaks and then wonders if:

‘First person shooters offered the chance to piss on a virtual enemy’s corpse?’

Now I love a good FPS myself. I’ve played quite a few of them. Many deliberately offer controversial sequences. Modern Warfare 2, for instance, has one sequence in which you can act as a terrorist, shooting innocents in a Russian airport. And while the body count is incredibly high in these games, I’ve virtually killed more than 51,000 times in Battlefield 2 alone, most game companies actively discourage swearing, racism, and such from their servers. I haven’t yet seen one yet that officially offered desecrating an enemy corpse as an option.

But where there is humanity there something just as human, and similarly disrespectful: I refer of course to the rampant teabagging of enemy corpses!

The Wikipedia entry on the subject describes the virtual act as “done to humorously imply domination or humiliation.” And The Giant Bomb website has this to say:

“Tea-bagging is primarily used to make one’s death a more humiliating experience and provoking the other player. This action is most commonly performed in video games found within the first-person shooter genre; however, every game that has a crouch button and dead bodies is susceptible to this phenomenon.”

The difference is, the worst of human behavior in computer games is all virtual, and generally not mean-spirited. Going to war should be a big fucking deal. And to make that clear we’d do better to show the reality of it, and to do it in high definition.

Posted by Jesse Willis

A video adaptation of Beyond The Door by Philip K. Dick

SFFaudio News

Nicolas writes in to ask:

“Could you tell me the difference between “PUBLIC DOMAIN” and “LIKELY PUBLIC DOMAIN”? And do I have to request publishing rights to Philip K. Dick Trust?”

Nicolas’s question refers to my Philip K. Dick’s PUBLIC DOMAIN short stories, novelettes and novellas post which is my way of cataloging of all of PKD’s short fiction that is PUBLIC DOMAIN. “LIKELY PUBLIC DOMAIN” is just my way of saying – “this story needs more investigation.” As I find evidence for the falsification of a copyright renewal, a lack of a renewal, and such, I post the evidence that supports PUBLIC DOMAIN status.

You do not have to request rights from the Philip K. Dick estate for anything that is PD. In fact doing so is probably more likely to get you sued (if THIS case is anything to go by).

Let’s take for example Philip K. Dick’s Beyond The Door, a very short story that we talked about in SFFaudio Podcast #122. This story is PUBLIC DOMAIN, available on Gutenberg, LibriVox and I’ve seen a short film version up on YouTube.

You can do anything you like with Beyond The Door, because it is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Human Is by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

Human Is by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Human Is by Philip K. Dick, illustration by Emsh

Here is the |ETEXT| (but I should point out the incorrect copyright date there – it should be 1954 not 1955).

This short story was published in the Winter 1955 issue of Startling Stories (which came out and was copyrighted in 1954).

The story’s copyright was not properly renewed. In fact, a falsified renewal was attempted in 1983!

Have a look at this:

RE 190631 detail for "Human Is"

Here is the full page:
RE190631 Page 3 (front) Souvenir, The Last Of The Masters, Upon The Dull Earth, Strange Eden, Jon's World, The Turning Wheel, Human Is

As you can see by the following scans the claimed original publication above, for Human Is, was falsified:

Startling Stories, Winter 1955 – table of contents (includes Human Is by Philip K. Dick):

Startling Stories, Fall 1955 table of contents (note the absence of PKD):
Startling Stories Fall 1955 table of contents

I know that most people won’t see the point of all this, so let me lay it out for you.

By 1983, the time of the renewal attempt, the agent for the Philip K. Dick Testamentary Trust, could not legally renew stories published in 1954. By 1983 any stories from 1954 would have already become PUBLIC DOMAIN. So when the renewal form was submitted the publication dates for many Philip K. Dick stories (including Human Is) were changed to make them seem eligible for renewal. The Fall 1955 issue of Startling Stories would have had a story eligible for renewal (had it been in there) because it was published in 1955. But the actual issue that the story was really published in, the Winter 1955 issue of Startling Stories, would not have had an eligible story because it was published in 1954.

The renewal was bullshit and Human Is, by Philip K. Dick, is therefore PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Exhibit Piece by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

Good news everyone! Exhibit Piece, a Philip K. Dick short story first published in the August 1954 issue of Worlds Of Science Fiction, is PUBLIC DOMAIN! The etext is HERE.

Exhibit Piece by Philip K. Dick
Exhibit Piece illustrated by Paul Orban

Exhibit Piece was protected by copyright at one time. It was not renewed.

This was not known previously as there was a was a fraudulent attempt to renew the copyright. This fact is evidenced by THIS scan of the associated U.S. copyright office renewal form. Here are the highlighted details:

Claimed issue of publication for Exhibit Piece

Here is a scan of the table of contents in the TRUE original publication (the August 1954 issue of If: Worlds Of Science Fiction):
Table of contents from the August 1954 issue of IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction

The renewal period had already lapsed by the time the bogus renewal attempt.

Here is the table of contents from the December 1955 issue of If: Worlds Of Science Fiction, note the absence of a story by Philip K. Dick in this issue:

Table of contents from the December 1955 issue of IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction

Exhibit Piece by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Also, here’s a |PDF|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick is a PUBLIC DOMAIN short story.

Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick - illustrated by Paul Orban
Paul Orban illustration from Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick

Back in 1983 an application was made to renew the copyright for Prominent Author, a short story by Philip K. Dick. The story’s copyright, however was not renewed in the time allotted. Instead the applicant, Paul Williams, mis-stated the original publication date giving Prominent Author the deceptive appearance of being within the renewal period. This is demonstrably false.

Here is the highlighted detail from the copyright renewal form:

Incorrect publication date for "Prominent Author"

Here is the complete page of the copyright renewal form for RE190631:

Here is the table of contents from the May 1954 issue of IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction (note that it includes Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick):
Table Of Contents for IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction (including Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick)

Here is the table of contents from IF: Worlds Of Science Fiction, June 1955 (note the absence of a story by Philip K. Dick):

Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick is a PUBLIC DOMAIN short story.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN

SFFaudio News

Upon The Dull Earth, a wonderful novelet by Philip K. Dick, is public domain!

Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick (illustration by Vidmer)

|ETEXT|

The story was first published in 1954, in a magazine called Beyond Fiction, in its 9th issue (Volume 2, Number 3).

The public domain status was not previously known as the story appeared to have been copyright renewed.

But, it was not.

Upon The Dull Earth Copyright Renewal Detail

Observe the highlighted details in the image above. Note that the story the applicant has claimed that the story was published in “March 1955”, in a magazine called “Beyond Science Fiction” in issue “10” (Volume “2” Number “4”).

No such magazine exists!

Beyond Fiction, aka Beyond Fantasy Fiction, was a sister publication to Galaxy Science Fiction, a long running SF pulp magazine. Beyond Fantasy Fiction (also titled Beyond Fiction) lasted only 10 issues. It was not created to compete with Galaxy, thus it was never titled “Beyond Science Fiction.” Its tenth issue was published in 1955, but it did not contain Upon The Dull Earth, or any other story by Philip K. Dick.

The story was actually published in the preceding issue, #9, in 1954. As such it would not have been eligible for renewal at the time of application.

Beyond Fiction Volume 2, Number 3, Issue #9 (1954) – Table Of Contents (includes Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick):
Beyond Fiction Volume 2 Number 3 Issue 9 - Table Of Contents (includes Upon The Dull Earth)

Beyond Fiction Volume 2, Number 4, Issue #10 (1955) – Table Of Contents:
Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Issue 10, Table Of Contents

The complete RE190631 (aka RE 190-631 aka RE0000190631) can be looked at on the official US copyright catalog website by using RE0000190631 as the search string HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis