Interview: Ursula K. Le Guin

Wonderful interview - thanks so much for sharing it!

Sharon

"I want unreadable dissertations written about them, I want people to get angry with them, I want people to love them."

Who could ask for more? Nicely done, Claire.

The struggle/schism has sharpened between distribution and content. The sword is double edged-- Google/China, Google/Newscorp, Google/orphaned works-writers, Newscorp/Cable. The "good fight" is muddy. Victory is not assured for anyone. But sides will be chosen.
JP

Great interview (maybe it helps that I'm a huge fan). However, does anybody believe that the current copyright system is not controlled by corporations? The true state of affairs is particular acute for non-Americans, since the US government seems to be serving US corporate interests in pushing other countries to change their copyright laws. See, e.g., the list the US publishes of top copyright offenders.

As someone who's had the opportunity to meet with, and talk to, Ms. LeGuin several times over a period of a couple of decades, among her other attributes don't forget to mention that she is one of the most gracious people you'll ever meet, and very generous with her time, giving readings and booksignings for non-profits among other things (the context within which I've had the opportunity to talk to her).

Beautiful portrait, too, BTW...

Our government and legal system uphold and control the ground rules of all publication, such as copyright and contract law. Does anybody but the CEO's of large corporations seriously believe we should hand those rights and laws over to private interests to rewrite?

Extremely naive comment by LeGuin. This is just corporation vs. corporation, with government on the sidelines. I know I'd rather go with Google on this than the sci-fi publishers, who are basically the RIAA or MPAA all over again.

"Everybody before Google who wanted to copy an o.p. or orphaned work had to find who held the copyright and ask permission. And everybody did so. And Google can do so."

Utter nonsense. In researching my thesis, I have come across diaries, correspondence, pictures, and other forms of intellectual property relating to my topic that I would have loved to have or have translated and brought to the broader public. However, given the difficulty in locating the authors, some of whom appears to have been massacred alongside their families and much of their villages, while others remain unlocated despite the best efforts of the SS, Gestapo, UDBA, FBI, CIA, and other relevant agencies to find them, I simply shoved some very interested material back into the folders of boxes that have been requested once in the last decade and then moved on to other stuff. Besides, what use could records relating to the rescue of Jews by Bosnian Muslims have in today's world.

Besides, why should she get paid for work preformed years ago? My mother and her fellow US Army medical professionals improve and save lives everyday, something far more valuable than any of Ms. Le Guin's books, and come the 1st and 15th of they are paid off for it. They don't collect fees from the kids who are born because of the lives they saved, or from the individuals for whom their actions led to better lives.

History Punk needs to go back to whoever has been supervising his/her thesis and get them to teach them proper research techniques. You are allowed, under current copyright law, to refer to any material in a thesis, and include short extracts, as long as you give clear reference to that material.

As for why an author should get paid for work done years ago... How else is an author to put food on the table. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that anyone who gets published is wealthy. More than 90% of authors in the Western world earn less than a dollar an hour for their work. Would you work for that much?

To me, this is similar to the Amazon/McMillan argument. McMillan wanted a specific price for the E-books from Amazon, while Amazon wanted to price them less.

Consequently, Amazon removed all of the buy buttons for any McMillan title in an effort to bully McMillan into agreeing with the specific price.

This supposedly forced patrons who wished to purchase any book published by McMillan into going to a brick and mortar store.

The publishing company was not hurt, the individual authors were.

The authors and their heirs are entitled to the royalties generated from the intellectual work the author performed whether or not the work was done yesterday or 100 years ago if the copyright has been maintained.

Google should hire the people to do the research just like anyone else does, creating jobs.

History Punk--

The difference is that her work is still being used, in a sense that many people's isn't. If I get paid to cook a meal or teach a class or paint a building, I cook one meal or teach one class or paint one building once. You might remember that meal fondly, but you aren't still eating it. Someone who learned from me has that learning, but a new person can't walk into that 1997 classroom and participate in that same lesson.

Books are different. (So are some other forms of art.)

Work Le Guin did forty years ago is still being enjoyed by new readers. If it weren't, this wouldn't be an issue. Google wants to sell advertising to people who want to read Le Guin's fiction (as well as lots of other books). They aren't setting up a charity--they plan to make money on this, and they're demanding that nobody else should ever get a better deal on this than they are. (So nobody else is likely to be able to set up a genuine, no-ads, free internet library.) Given that the work is still valued, why should the money go to some large corporation rather than to the person who did the work? What work is Sergei Brin doing today that means he should be profiting from Le Guin's work? What work are the people who own stock in Verizon and Comcast and Consolidated Edison doing, such that they somehow deserve a payoff for the power and connectivity that will drive this? A lot of stock is inherited--why is that somehow more valid than inheriting one's mother's copyrights?

@Vicki, not that I agree with everything History Punk is saying, but as to your rhetorical question about Sergei Brin, the answer seems pretty clear---Google is scanning old books and wants to put them on the web, where I can access them easily. Pretty clear public benefit there.

Excellent interview.

"History Punk needs to go back to whoever has been supervising his/her thesis and get them to teach them proper research techniques. You are allowed, under current copyright law, to refer to any material in a thesis, and include short extracts, as long as you give clear reference to that material."

This refers to published works, IIRC. HP is referring, if I read his comment correctly, to unpublished, private papers/photos/etc, for which the rules are different.

And not to malign Le Guin, whose books I have enjoyed in the past, but when she talks about a

corporation whose interest is in controlling information and horning in on writers' profits [...] I'm protesting against a corporation being allowed to rewrite the rules of copyright and the laws of my country -- and in doing so, to wreck the whole idea of that limitless electronic Public Library.

you'd hardly know that it's the corporation she opposes which is trying to make books publicly available, and she and her allies the ones working to keep the texts limited.

When I read:

I'm protesting against a corporation being allowed to rewrite the rules of copyright and the laws of my country

I don't think Google; I think Disney, and their power to push horrible extensions of copyright.

Spider Robinson was the only SF writer that I remember speaking out against that.

I agree that this class action suit has led to less than perfect results, but it can be modified, and it may lead to legistlation that will improve it. The current situation of orphans, and libraries without clout to make their scanned books available, is not the utopia ULG is making it sound.

I feel really horrible placing this here as it is entirely out of context. I went to the contact page of this blog and found no way to ask this question. I recently started reading Amy Thomson's book, "The Color of Distance." I'm highly impressed and at this point feel I'd like to read more of her stuff. She is seems to be neither particularly famous nor prolific(4-5 books in fifteen years or so). I'm hoping she doesn't quit. Her take on alien culture and first contact scenarios are, in my opinion, very good. She also suggests a plausible series of events (anaphylaxis) on other oxygen rich worlds. Bascially, I'm fishing for information on Amy Thomson, whether she has plans of writing more than the books she has already written...and frankly, I use a multi-library catalogue and not all of her books are carried. Claire, I was hoping you could give me information or a direction to look in. I didn't really want to put all of this in a comment section of an interview.

We need science fiction writers to weigh in. After all they are well equipped to envision how our actions today will affect the a distant future.

"History Punk needs to go back to whoever has been supervising his/her thesis and get them to teach them proper research techniques. You are allowed, under current copyright law, to refer to any material in a thesis, and include short extracts, as long as you give clear reference to that material."

And someone needs to teach you how to read. I explicitly stated that I wanted to have it "translated and brought to the broader public," which means I am using more than short extracts and quotes. Jesus Christ dude, I am learning disabled and dumb to enlist in the military while having a free ride to college, yet had enough cognitive function to figure that out. Is your mom/wife the former governor of Alaska?

"As for why an author should get paid for work done years ago... How else is an author to put food on the table. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that anyone who gets published is wealthy. More than 90% of authors in the Western world earn less than a dollar an hour for their work. Would you work for that much?"

I could not care less. Seriously. Odds are, if you're earning a dollar an hour for your labor than you're labor is not needed or desired. Too many people have been suckered into believing they have the talent to write and should do so. If a limited copyright will cut down on the bibliographic spewage polluting B&N or Borders, all the better.

If you need a system that rewards great-grand children and beyond for the work of people they've never met to motivate you to do a job, maybe that job isn't for you. :)

Google is seeking to provide a service with a public benefit, yes. But the only reason they are providing that public benefit is because it will increase their own profits. To pretend that they are doing this our of the goodness of their hearts is naive.

Furthermore, if Ms. Leguin does not wish for Google to make money off of her work, that seems like a valid wish. A free online public digital library in the future sounds great - but just like I wouldn't want Borders to all of a sudden own the publishing rights to every book ever, so that they could let me read it for free WHILE ADVERTISING TO ME, I don't want Google to own the rights to The Left Hand of Darkness just so I can read it for free online while they make advertising bucks. Let a not-for-profit do it.

OMG, an original LeGuin interview on Sb! Awesome!

The way publishing works is, most writers do not get paid all they need to earn from their work up front. The labor they perform is compensated bit by bit over years of sales, reprints, new editions, etc. And of sales to subsidiary rights such as those to e-books--which latter rights Google is currently trying to seize. That is why writers need long copyright terms.

Writing is very hard work, and writing one book can take years--even full time. People who assert that it's a fun and easy hobby, therefore readers don't need to pay for books, at best don't understand what they are talking about. Writing a book at a professional level requires professional expertise. Writing is not intrinsically more fun than any other profession. Nobody likes every aspect of their job and every day they work at it: It's the same for writers. Writing may benefit the public; so do most other professions. That is not an excuse to expect them to work for free.

Publishers also perform many important and expensive essential services such as editing, fact checking, proofreading, indexing, graphic design, page layout, illustration, translation into foreign languages, and a great deal else; while incurring all the overhead needed in running a business. If a writer self-publishes, all these tasks, costs, and risks do not change; they are merely shifted from publisher to author.

To denigrate the work of writers by saying that you want their work free and simultaneously, that if they somehow don't earn enough money anyway, tough, you are still entitled to their work, is--self-serving is the kindest term I can think of. People who really value literature and information are willing to pay for them. There is no reason why creators of works--and all the subsidiary freelancers or employees they need such as editors and graphic artists--should become a slave class, laboring to provide free books to readers who are enjoying comfortable livings from their own work while expecting all their enlightement and entertainment free in addition.

The terms of the Settlement make it very clear that Google plans to charge for both e-books and POD books created from the scans--not give them away. That is, charge for them in addition to selling advertising next to the online pages. One of the complaints about the Settlement made by diverse parties, from libraries to the US Justice Department, is that Google will effectively have a monopoly on the copyrighted books, therefore Google can fix prices.

So, Google's not doing the public any favors. Anyone can produce and sell e-books and POD books. They hardly need Google to do it--or for Google and the proposed Book Registry to each take a big cut of the profits from e-book and POD book sales while having done nothing at all to actually create the book.

It is really a nice article with the help of a nice video.According to me every one should go through it at least once.

Would HistoryPunk please stop making such offensive posts in an otherwise interesting discussion about a topic of great importance to writers around the globe?

Frankly, I thought UKL was being overly gracious with a bunch of clumsy, inept leading questions. She is defending intellectual property. It only took 10 years for the Napster-gate scenario to play out in the literary world. She and other writers have a right to contest the unilateral co-opting of their works. History Punk reflects the cynicism of the age--an age which has shown itself to be vacuous and leaderless.

"I could not care less. Seriously. Odds are, if you're earning a dollar an hour for your labor than you're labor is not needed or desired. Too many people have been suckered into believing they have the talent to write and should do so. If a limited copyright will cut down on the bibliographic spewage polluting B&N or Borders, all the better."

I'm in love with this comment. I don't really have an opinion about the digitization of books, or about copyright law...but seriously, why should we care how much money authors make? There'll always be good books...more than anyone can read in a lifetime. Milton didn't make shit from publishing his work, but we still got Paradise Lost (he sold the copyright for ten pounds...which was, admittedly, a much larger amount in 1667, but still not _that_ much).

Among lots of possible comments @ History Punk & Kan:
there is the pesky nuisance of giving credit where credit is due. Authors wrote their works. Google didn't, and people accessing works on Goggle's website didn't.
"Odds are, if you're earning a dollar an hour for your labor than your labor is not needed or desired."
Oh, really. I guess that settles it.