Science fictional survival guide - The S&L Podcast #48

[Veronica, Supreme Sword]

New episode is up!

[Tamahome]

I didn't like it, because you didn't mention my name this time. :p

[Sean]

The copyright thing: Any work published between 1923 and 1964 is public domain unless the copyright holder filed a renewal. Most authors did this, but some works slipped through the cracks, and some authors left their estates in such a mess that there was no one to renew the copyrights (this is why most of H. Beam Piper's stories are on Gutenberg).

In the case of the Poul Anderson story, the mix-up is over th fact that it was originally published in a magazine, and the magazine didn't renew the copyright. Apparently Anderson retained the rights in this case, and did the renewal himself. There are lots of science fiction stories on Gutenberg that are there for similar reasons, and there's some debate about whether this screw-up was one-off or if it affects all those stories.

[Veronica, Supreme Sword]

Tamahome wrote: "I didn't like it, because you didn't mention my name this time. :p"

<3

[Space Preacher]

Just so you know, many of the characters from First Law show up in the subsequent Abercrombie books. There's a whole lot of "HEY IT'S THAT GUY FROM THE TRILOGY!" Two of the main characters in Best Served Cold are prominent supporting-characters in First Law.

I can understand feeling kinda down on the ending, but practically everything in that series is a subversion of fantasy tropes. I'm pretty sure we're gonna get some closure in books down the line.

Also, preorder The Heroes right now and it's 10$ off!

[terpkristin]

Oooh thanks for the tip, smeej!

For the record, Tom and Veronica, though I didn't care for How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, I quite enjoyed The Princess Bride and most of The Once and Future King (I didn't like the last part of the audiobook, the one where Arthur meets back up with Merlin and the woodlands creatures). :D So, don't worry about me, I'm good (just been wicked busy with work). :)

Count this as another recommendation for the audio version of The Name of the Wind. The story is fantastic and the narration is great. Funny to hear the Mistborn trilogy recommended; I just started reading the second in that trilogy.

[[deleted user]]

Pfft. My comment still counts *shun*

[Tamahome]

This is for you, Terpkristin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4PGBS...

[terpkristin]

Tamahome wrote: "This is for you, Terpkristin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4PGBS..."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Something Tom said in passing about copyright and fair use made me think of a conference I went to called "Media, New" at Grinnell College in 2005. There was a speaker there who was an expert on art appropriation, which has always fascinated me, and is on the border line of artistic expansion and copyright violation. Endless hours of examples on the web.

The USA has the strictest public domain laws of any country. To get ourselves in line with the majority of the EU and Canada, we'd have to knock at least 20 years off the limitation. That's just for print! Sound recordings are an even bigger headache, but I'll spare you. :)

[Sean]

Jenny wrote: "The USA has the strictest public domain laws of any country. To get ourselves in line with the majority of the EU and Canada, we'd have to knock at least 20 years off the limitation. That's just for print!"

Copyright is complex enough that you can't really say one country is stricter than the next. Current US copyright is life+90 years, whereas in the EU it's only life+70 -- but in the EU that's a blanket rule, while the US allows a number of exceptions, most notably that anything published before 1923 is public domain. The upshot is, The War of the Worlds (published 1898) is under copyright in Europe until 2016 even though it's PD in the US.