Philip K. Dick – Page 50

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

The SFFaudio Podcast #143 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #143 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, and Kristin (A.K.A Terpkristin) talk about recently arrived audiobooks, new releases and more.

Talked about on today’s show:
The origin of the name ‘Terpkristin’, Scott has a pile of audio, (see also the NewAudioBookIn twitter feed), Hominids and Humans from Robert J. Sawyer, evolved Neanderthals, Farseer (the dinosaur book), Flashforward, Kristin’s scientific evaluations, “needs more ego”, Pamela Sargent’s Earthseed (Seed, #1), Greg Bear’s Forge of God, memorable earth destruction, Peter F. Hamilton’s Void Trilogy (‘Hawking m-sink’ weapon), the Star Trek movie, Burning Chrome anthology by William Gibson includes Johnny Mnemonic, when will they list all the short stories on the audiobook package?, precursor to Neuromancer, William Gibson’s non-fiction Distrust That Particular Flavor is out from Tantor (Jesse will establish later), he’s a crossover, who will read Sisterhood Of Dune?, extending a series, Zelazny’s Amber series, Glasslands (Halo, #8) by Karen Traviss (she also did a lot of Star Wars books), “stuff happens fiction”, Eve Online, “gateway books”, James Blish Star Trek books, Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, The Thirteen Hallows by Michael Scott and Colette Freedman, I Am Number Four, YA series, “contractual sweatshop”, Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, a steampunk pioneer, “quick off the mark”, Little Big by John Crowley narrated by the author, Stephan Rudnicki was denied Aegypt (at 43 min), the legend of the Cottingley Fairies, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed it, “the Fairy Gap”, Larry Niven’s The Ringword Engineers and The Ringworld Throne, The Protector, the Security Now science fiction episode, “The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable!”, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., NPR dramatized it, good for Scott and Julie’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast?, Working For The Devil (Dante Valentine, #1) by Lilith Saintcrow, Dante is a woman?, Neal Stephenson’s Currency (The Baroque Cycle, Book 3, Vol. 7), they broke it down, Kristin read the whole thing!, Tantor has drm-free downloads, A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke, a Poseidon adventure on the moon, BBC Radio drama version, Timecaster by Joe Kimball, sounds like Minority Report, an idea for someone else to write, the Assassin’s Creed game, Brent Weeks’s Night Angel trilogy, hoodies are popular, the comic Chew‘s gruesome premise, Mur Lafferty likes it (5 stars on Goodreads!), Aces High (Wild Cards, #2) edited by George R.R. Martin, Jenny’s special message about A Wrinkle In Time, the 50th anniversary, a parallel world thing, the Pern series, The Greg Mandel trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, my review of Mindstar Rising (Greg Mandel, #1), psychic powers, Lady And The Tramp, Scott’s box of audio has become infected with a zombie virus, Rise by Gareth Wood, “we’re not desolate or empty!”, entering New Releases territory, Blackstone, Raylan by Elmore Leonard, Justified tv show does a good Leonard, style, Out Of Sight movie and book, it was J-lo’s best, Sixth Column by Heinlein, Jesse can’t remember it, The Voice From The Edge series by Harlan Ellison, he’s got a passion, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream was dramatized on BBC radio too, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality, Inc. (our readalong should be out next week), Bronson Pinchot narrated, (I think this is where I lost my mic because I was trying to say “transplant!” from that audiobook), A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, a classic feminist science fiction novel, no men needed, Brilliance audiobooks are cheap!, “Someone explain the point of Audible” (at least I can still text), “What’s the fascination with zombies?”, societal significance or commercial? (I’m starting to think they’re ignoring me), Twilight and their ilk, Night Of The Long Knives by Fritz Leiber, how these subgenres are grouped together, vs the U.K., Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey is fantasy or science fiction?, Star Wars gadgetry, Alan Moore’s Lovecraft salute comic Neonomicon, the Audible app, Tamahome is in the hole

Posted by Tamahome

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

The SFFaudio Podcast #141 – READALONG: The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #141 – Last week’s podcast was an unabridged reading of The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. This week Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Professor Eric S. Rabkin form an ad hoc community discuss it!

Talked about on today’s show:
Are we men or animals?, Charles Laughton, The Island Of Lost Souls, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, let the movie atrophy and evaporate, changing the name Prendick to Prentice to Parker, Margaret Atwood, Moor, death, water, Moreau, Gustav Moreau, etchings of Dante’s Inferno, ebony, anthracite, Moreau is a funeral shroud, prig + dick (thick), prender, Prendick appropriates Moreau’s island, the manuscript, Prendick is a user, “a false church”, Edward (the happy guardian), Charles (the common man), “a private gentleman”, the single biggest theme in the book (modern European culture deforms the natural state of things), beastilizing humans or humanizing beasts, the white man’s burden (and his name is black), pro-science vs. anti-progress, Darwin brings the questioning of the moral narrative of humans, Montgomery and Moreau lack moral direction, Prendick too is directionless (all at sea), vivisection, “life is the house of pain”, Wells (and Mary Shelley) are deeply concerned with the relationship of scientists with the larger community, Eric thinks science unaware of moral obligation is the target, Prendick is a disingenuous narrator, Moreau is a colonial overload, “The Lady Vain”, Lady Day (Billie Holiday) vs. Lady Day (the Catholicism meaning), “Lady Day” is an ironic reversal of “Saint Mary”, Ipecacuanha = ipecac, Gulliver’s Travels, what are the chances of a collision with a derelict ship in the middle of Pacific?, M’Ling, mankind’s way of finding destruction, “ship of fools”, the ships are microcosms, a foreshadowing of destruction (of an unsustainable ), “Wells is just so God-damned smart”, Addaneye Island vs. Adonai (God), M’Ling is Manling, is M’ling a dog or an ape?, Thomas Hobbes‘ Leviathan, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, “the great chain of being”, “In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and M’ling went across the island to the huts in the ravine.” Montgomery = defender of the mountain, Prendick’s narration belies the events of the story, poetic justice, “he attacks Helmar with his hands”, men don’t sink like stones, cannibalism, “when every animal is a person then you better have a law against cannibalism”,

A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batter his foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet. Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished. He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute. I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened his eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine. The lids fell.

“Sorry,” he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to think. “The last,” he murmured, “the last of this silly universe. What a mess — ”

I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drink might revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to bring drink at hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold. I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse. He was dead…

Eric thinks Prendick is trying to exonerates himself, abolutionism a theme of abstinence and alcohol, “you’re Mr. Shut Up”, Lem Johnson, Governor George Gawler‘s 1838 speech to the local Aborigines in the Adelaide area:

“Black men – We wish to make you happy. But you cannot be happy unless you imitate good white men. Build huts, wear clothes, work and be useful. Above all things you cannot be happy unless you love GOD who made heaven and earth and men and all things. Love white men. Love other tribes of black men. Do not quarrel together. Tell other tribes to love white men, and to build good huts and wear clothes. Learn to speak English. If any man injure you tell the protector and he will do you justice.”

language as an instrument of repression, “this is an impossible story”, vivisection cannot create men, “this is a fable”, Thomas Henry Huxley, Wells was an apprentice to Huxley, natural selection and animal nature, if you can evolve can you devolve?, Montgomery is Moreau’s vicar (or Pope), an experiment with a snake, the Garden of Eden, Prendick is a liar, there is no great chain of being, Brits don’t have the right to change Indians, neither the force of arms, nor the claim of church, nor the claim of law can justifiably impose on one’s fellow man, The Time Machine, cannibalism is a transformation of murder, The Island Of Doctor Moreau as a fable, Sigmund Freud’s essay on “the uncanny” (make the metaphorical literal), The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick, it looks like a beast fable, “animal swiftness”, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, rabbits and Easter and eggs, Prendick destroys the symbol of christian resurrection, “a boat of community”, The War Of The Worlds as a kind of coda to The Island Of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein, human beings are social animals, Boer Wars, South Africa, The Invisible Man, The Kingdom Of The Blind by H.G. Wells, one man is no match to a community, all of Wells’ protagonists seem to be horrible human beings, “a private gentleman”, if you have means you have an obligation to participate in the world, the doubting Thomas Marvel, the ocelot man, the pig men, the monkey man, “he’s a five man”, “big thinks” vs. “little thinks”, “it takes a real man to tell a lie”, sex and marriage and community in Frankenstein, Doctor Moreau Explains, man-making vs. woman-making, the puma-woman, Brian Aldiss, The Other Island Of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein Unbound, “when suffering finds a voice”, vivisection, social class, PETA, the British Museum, the National Anti-Vivisection Society, The Invention Of Morrel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, “an atrocious miracle”, “youthful blasphemy”, are there any contemporary reviews for The Island Of Doctor Moreau?, Henry James vs. H.G. Wells, little picture vs. big picture, psychology vs. sociology, characters vs. ideas, our Rainbow’s End discussion, Wells is undervalued because he is so easy to read, the consumption of food and drink, Wells learned it all, The Outline Of History by H.G. Wells, Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, ramify, The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, The Inheritors is an elegiac recognition of the importance of community, neanderthals.