the magazine napster goes legit

Thanks to the Canadian Magazines blog for continuing to follow this fascinating story.

A couple years ago, an Ontario-based tech and magazine fan, Darren Budd, decided to merge his two interests. The result was mygazines.com, a file-sharing site in which members were encouraged to scan the complete contents of physical magazines and "share" them online with fellow members. As you might imagine, the people paying the bills and sweating the talent to create those physical magazines became very interested in the mygazines "business model." Through US and Canadian courts, mygazines went away.

And now it's back, promising to be a better citizen. Budd had this to say about the earlier, now defunct, file-sharing site:

Bottom line is, we didn’t handle it right. We had a great technical idea, we had a very good site that could be good for the industry, but we didn’t handle it properly... at the end of the day, you can blame anybody you want. We took bad advice and followed it, and I will take responsibility for it.

Full interview with Budd about the very intriguing mygazines 2.0 here.

My favorite part:

I came up with the idea about two and a half years ago. I was standing in a magazines store and thought, gee, I want one article from that magazine, two articles from that, and I only have a limited budget - and even if I have an extended budget, I’m going to have too many magazines to carry..."

Ow, copyright is so heavy.

linking to Ontario's literature

The last section in the right-hand menu of this blog is now an alphabetical list of links to the many and various magazines, book publishers, art service organizations and literary festivals supported by the Ontario Arts Council Literature Office in 2008. I will add more as they arrive within the granting system, and will also include links to groups operating without OAC support. As we know, the OAC cannot possibly fund all of the worthwhile requests it receives in a given year.

Have a look through the list and marvel, as I do, at the size and breadth of literary culture in the province of Ontario.

save Cory!

Yeah, that's right, I've been busy and therefore not blogging. I apologize to my several readers.

Here's a little food for the eyes. My latest THIS Magazine books column is now online. In it, I disagree with the many, many gushing reviews Cory Doctorow's young adult novel, Little Brother, has attracted.

Me and Spider Robinson not in agreement? How is that possible? We're practically the same person.

Anyway, here you go:

Little Lessons

As is often the case with this column, I want to thank Evan Munday for an excellent illustration.

why I fear Ondaatje

My latest Books column for THIS Magazine is up on their website (as well as in the beautiful print magazine on newsstands across Canada). In it, I discuss Michael Ondaatje's fetish for pain and suffering. Read it at the link below (or I'll send Mike for a visit):

Kill Your Babies Beautifully


(image courtesy THIS Magazine)

how not to find a friend

The June 2008 issue of Cottage Life magazine (on newsstands next Monday) includes my article about being lost in a deep dark woods, with only a couple of friends for support, and surrounded by mysterious, hidden threats.

Wow, flashback.

sex and the forty-something

My latest Books column for THIS Magazine is now up on the web. In it, I examine youthful attitudes to sex through the lens of an excellent Canadian small press novel, Be Good, by Stacey May Fowles. See the full article at this link. And here's a sample:

To fortysomething eyes, Be Good is a postsexual- revolution folly, full of characters living a freedom won by their predecessors, yet not quite knowing how best to take advantage of it. Kids these days: they can sleep with whomever they choose, relatively guilt-free, yet still they trap themselves in cycles of denial and restraint.

*****

And speaking of Canadian small press novels... if you want one for free, why not try mine? You can download a full PDF version of The Uninvited Guest (including the controversial cover image) free of charge at the posting above.

Enjoy.

And if you like the book, consider donating to my writing:

Richer and poorer

My latest books column with THIS Magazine is online today (and also in one of those old-fashioned paper copies of the magazine found at your local, excellent magazine newsstand). You might want to read it, so I provide you here with a link to go and do that. Free, absolutely free -- no digital locks involved. Have fun -- and of course I trust you to respect the copyright. I know you will because you're good people.

It's sadly ironic, of course, that just as I get around to arguing Canada's publishing industry can make a book with the best of the world, Raincoast Books -- surely one of the more cash-rich book producers in Canada, thanks to a bespectacled boy wizard -- has decided to stop making Canadian books. This has made many folks upset, including the good people of The Writers Union of Canada and that fearsome ninja, George Murray.

I'm attempting to channel my disturbance over this Raincoast development into a more positive thought -- who needs them? There are many brave and dedicated publishers of Canadian books in our industry who have not had an international smash hit fluffing their pillows for a decade or so. They continue and, despite a strong Canadian dollar playing havoc with their already miniscule margins, the quality of their production just gets better and better. Bravo to you all.

Bye, bye Raincoast. I will miss your brilliant Jonathan Bennett, and know he will land somewhere better soon.

copyright = oxygen

A friend of mine, copyfighter Russell McOrmond, is fond of the analogy that copyright law is like water -- too little of it and we die of thirst; too much of it and we drown. As analogies go, this one is very tidy, but I prefer to think of my copyright as oxygen. For the professional practice of a working writer, copyright is not a too much/too little proposition. It's an either/or. Provided with my oxygen, I get to keep breathing and keep writing. Deprived of it, well...

Russell's commitment to what he sees as fair copyright is profound, and I respect him even as I often disagree with the particulars of his position. I think our disagreements stem mostly from the fact that we work in very different areas and very different ways. Russell is a software developer and consultant deeply integrated into the open source ethos of that particular field. I write very traditional texts -- poems, novels, essays and articles. It is possible that we need very different things from a copyright law, and I would hope that Canada's legislators are subtle and smart enough to provide for both of us. You heard me.

Anyway, it looks like the feds are getting ready to make long-awaited and crucial changes to the Canadian Copyright Act. While the online Copyright Act says it is current to this very month, the bulk of it addresses a pre-digital reality, and for professional writers the pre- and post-digital worlds are drastically different in terms of respect and payment for work. An example:

In my day-job as Executive Director of the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC), I deal with a lot of professional writers who have found their work reproduced on commercial websites or in commercial databases, without either permission from or payment to the writer. In many cases, not even the original publisher of the work is aware that the work has been appropriated for use elsewhere. Ignorant or unscrupulous re-publishers simply copy and paste entire texts from one site to another and then offer up the work as their own content. This is not quoting, or linking or referencing – all of which I support as necessary freedoms – but wholesale copying of complete texts. I am frequently astounded by the response of these absconders to any complaint or query about their business practices.

“But the article was freely available on the Internet.” Yes, for reading, not re-using.

“But the information in the article is crucial to the public interest – how dare you try to lock up this information!” No-one is trying to lock up information; we are instead asking you to respect the copyright of a text. There’s a real difference. A text is created through the work of a writer. It is original and of both commercial and moral value to the writer.

And my personal favorite… “We were providing that article for educational purposes only, and we gave the writer full credit.”

This one needs a bit of unfolding. First of all, full credit without permission or any suggestion of payment is cold comfort. For an idea of how writers see such deals, watch this YouTube video (warning: profanity):


(American writer, Harlan Ellison explains the joys of working for "credit.")

Secondly, no website with any commercial intent (one that sells advertising space, for instance, or attempts to present itself as the authority on a specific topic while aligned to a related commercial interest) provides anything for educational purposes only. This is a gigantic cop out, and one with terrifying implications for any potential new legislation. The idea that educational use of texts should be given an exception under the law is a disastrous loophole in the making.

Any exception to copyright weakens the entire concept and makes the prospect of professional creative practice very tricky indeed. Copyright ownership and control do not necessarily mean lack of access, but exceptions to ownership and control might very well mean the end of “professional” writing. Besides, exceptions are completely unnecessary. Any number of perfectly reasonable mechanisms can be used to make sure genuine educational uses of copyright protect material can be both easily and inexpensively accessed by both students and teachers, AND see to it that the copyright holders are fairly compensated for that use. As a society, we’re smart that way.

All sorts of new business models are being tested in the new digital reality, including models that provide digital access to original copyright protected material free of charge with the aim of battling obscurity (the writer’s greatest foe). You can see Canada’s own Sheila Heti doing just that over at her site, where visitors can read the entire text of her beautiful The Middle Stories. Please note, though, that it is Sheila Heti, the owner of the copyright on The Middle Stories, and not someone else who has decided to test this business model for her, for educational purposes only and with full credit, blah, blah, blah.. That’s how copyright needs to work – the owner makes the decisions and, hopefully, everyone benefits.

The prospect of new law has brought out all the usual suspects to advocate for their own positions as a bill approaches. I am one of the usual suspects. PWAC and The Writers’ Union combined on this recent letter in the Hill Times:

Letter to the Hill Times

Meanwhile, over at PWAC, we are trying to bring a little humour and consumerism to the effort by selling pro-writer, strong copyright gear, such as the bumper sticker shown above. We also offer Pay the Writer and Strong Copyright coffee mugs and t-shirts.


I wrote all the taglines for the PWAC gear, and provided it (free of charge) to PWAC. In my new business model for writing, PWAC will now continue to pay my salary. You know, hopefully.

Thanks to the excellent blog bookninja.com for tipping me off to what Sheila Heti is up to these days. And now, no doubt, Russell McOrmond will write a long comment. En garde!

small mooga

Stuart Ross is one of the best lunch dates in town. The Toronto small press publisher, poet, readings host, editor, short story writer, blogger and raconteur loves eggplant and the tiny, independent publishing scene, in that order.

Way over on his very good blog -- bloggamooga -- he's wondering about the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, where it's going and how it might go there, or somewhere better. Stu helped found the TSPBF twenty years ago, and by doing so he donated an incredibly important venue for audience-finding and literature-testing to a generation or two of Toronto writers and publishers. Half the folks I like in Toronto I met at the Fair, and I'll bet there's a lot of Toronto writers who can say the same. So, when Stu speaks about the Fair, we should listen.

In the last few years, kids, work and life in general have taken me far from the Fair, which is a shame for me. That the numbers of the browsing public have dropped by about 90% is a shame for everyone.

Stu's put out a general call to revive the Fair. Visit him over at bloggamooga. Ask him to lunch, and tell him you want to help.

rising Canadian currency

My latest Books column for THIS Magazine is now on newsstands... and online.

Check it out at the following link:

A Tale of Two Realities

Taddle Creek

(thanks to Taddle Creek magazine for the use of this image)

It's getting to that time of year again when Torontonians in the know start wondering when the next Taddle Creek happening will be. I am also wondering, and cannot find any info about it on the Taddle Creek Information Superhighway Location on the Internetwork. And so I post this musing, knowing that TC publisher Conan Tobias will be alerted to my question by Google's robots and will answer, at which time I will update this blog with the info and the circle of web life will continue to spin.

Taddle Creek is nothing less than Canada's greatest literary magazine. It appears only twice a year, is always beautiful to look at, and mixes fiction, poetry, essays and interviews in just the right proportions. I am biased, but that hardly matters, since I'm also correct.

For a sample of Taddle Creek you must visit their beautifully text-heavy website -- and what better place to start than this page, which contains an excerpt from my novel.

To give you an idea of how TC manages to be the best, consistently, year after year, you need only look as far as the facts that are presented in my entirely fictional contribution to the magazine. Before it was published, Tobias and I spent many a back and forth e-mail wrangling over the Swedish geography presented in the excerpt. As well, I believe Tobias did intensive research on the American tobacco industry to make sure that, indeed, Kent cigarettes were offered in Swedish cigarette machines in the 1970s. Simply put, the man's obsessive attention to detail always improves the quality of the literary work he accepts for his magazine. If that isn't enough, he launches each and every issue with a party at which there is often free beer.

So fly, Google monkeys, fly -- and tell Mr. Tobias we are wondering when the next great party will be.

snake eating tail

My recent column in THIS Magazine, which mentioned the blog Bookninja.com, has been profiled on the blog Bookninja.com.

And now that I have taken note of that, the circle of web-life is complete.

THIS Books column

Starting with the current issue, I am the Books columnist for THIS Magazine, the leading alternative Canadian magazine of politics, pop culture, and the arts.

My first column can be found at the following link:

THIS Books