Author Topic: Attributing Original Publisher  (Read 10253 times)

Unblinking

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on: February 10, 2014, 03:42:19 PM
I noticed a tweeted conversation where both Drabblecast and Escape Pod were mentioned as not attributing the original publisher in cases of reprint:
https://twitter.com/clarkesworld/status/422756567054696448

Should be easy enough to do, and would be right.  I hadn't noticed the lack, but I would be upset if I were the author or original publisher.



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Reply #1 on: February 10, 2014, 04:22:32 PM
It looks like from the tweet thread that Norm has already been informed and fixed the problem a month ago. Did the problem/conversation crop up again somewhere?

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Unblinking

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Reply #2 on: February 10, 2014, 05:16:55 PM
It looks like from the tweet thread that Norm has already been informed and fixed the problem a month ago. Did the problem/conversation crop up again somewhere?

I see the part where the email was sent, but not the part where it was fixed.  Norm is great at a lot of things, but responding to emails is not particularly one of them, in my experience anyway.  I thought it worth posting here to make sure it got seen. 
« Last Edit: February 10, 2014, 05:23:11 PM by Unblinking »



eytanz

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Reply #3 on: February 10, 2014, 05:30:41 PM
It looks like from the tweet thread that Norm has already been informed and fixed the problem a month ago. Did the problem/conversation crop up again somewhere?

I see the part where the email was sent, but not the part where it was fixed.  Norm is great at a lot of things, but responding to emails is not particularly one of them, in my experience anyway.  I thought it worth posting here to make sure it got seen. 

Norm doesn't visit the forums, so he won't see it here.

EP used to attribute original publication sources on the blog (I know because I always copied the information over to the forum threads), though I'm not sure if it ever did on the podcasts themselves. At some point during Norm's tenure, they stopped, and they haven't started again in the past month.



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Reply #4 on: February 10, 2014, 05:34:09 PM
Thanks for the FYI, Unblinking. I see that the DC main website has been updated already for Bell's and Yant's stories, but I did notice that the DC story threads don't yet include attribution. I'll touch base with the other mods over yonder about it.

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Unblinking

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Reply #5 on: February 10, 2014, 06:20:05 PM
Norm doesn't visit the forums, so he won't see it here.

EP used to attribute original publication sources on the blog (I know because I always copied the information over to the forum threads), though I'm not sure if it ever did on the podcasts themselves. At some point during Norm's tenure, they stopped, and they haven't started again in the past month.

I wasn't so much meaning to reach Norm directly here, but to reach someone at Escape Artists who would both see the reason for the need for attribution, and also be in a position where they can either do something or prod Norm more directly to do something. 

From where I'm standing I have yet to find a way to reach Norm directly that doesn't fail more often than it succeeds.



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Reply #6 on: February 10, 2014, 07:41:30 PM
I'll try to bring it to Norm's attention as well.

I'm not arguing or being snotty here, I'm really just asking out of ignorance to try to understand the thinking behind it all: If the author retains all of the rights to a piece, and you're dealing with the author and not using any previous resources in your production, should your obligations extend beyond the author to mention previous publications? Is first money greener than second money or something? I mean, when a high school performs Damn Yankees, they have to mention the rights holder in their programs or something, but the don't have to mention every group that produced that script before.

If I was an author and sold production rights for a piece to two different places, I would expect both to mention me, but I don't see an advantage in having one mention the other. I guess I could see it if the original production was a commissioned piece, but in that case, the first producer would also be the rights holder… I'm just spitballing here.

That being said, I know we do often make such mentions, though since it's not my place to worry about it I haven't made sure to track that it's done every time.

Mentioning the original publisher isn't for rights-holder reasons, because any reasonable short story contract will have the rights still owned by the author.

To some extent, I would say it's more a matter of professional courtesy and giving credit where credit's due.  If I sold reprint rights of "Marley and Cratchit" to some other publishing entity, for instance, I would expect that other publishing entity to credit Escape Pod as the original publisher.  This would be good for Escape Pod because it may help move some traffic in EP's direction for nothing beyond the initial investment it took to publish the story in the first place.  This would be good for me, because it would be good for Escape Pod and I like Escape Pod.  This wouldn't necessarily have a tangible benefit for the reprint publisher, apart from fostering the sense of community that makes SF fandom, and SF podcasting in particular, so great.  But it wouldn't hurt either, and I think it's not an unreasonable expectation.

As an example of what I mean by SF podcasting community, I believe that Clarkesworld has given over some of their recordings for Escape Pod to use, for Hugo month kind of things.  Crediting Clarkesworld as being the original publisher of a story reprinted here would be in the same spirit.

Since the Escape Artists casts guidelines say they prefer reprints, this topic is going to be more visible for these casts for than for others.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2014, 07:43:40 PM by Unblinking »



Unblinking

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Reply #7 on: February 10, 2014, 07:46:12 PM
(There might be other reasons too, I'm not particularly business-minded)



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Reply #8 on: February 10, 2014, 07:53:12 PM
I agree with Unblinking - I think the main benefit is 1) professionalism and 2) if the situations were reversed, we would sure love Escape Artist originals (or DC originals) pointed back to where they first appeared, both for promotional reasons and for the reader's benefit.

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eytanz

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Reply #9 on: February 10, 2014, 08:27:08 PM
I think it's less about publication rights but more about acknowledging the original home of the story, especially since in some cases the story may have benefited from editorial feedback from its original venue.

Not to mention that the original twitter thread has several high profile authors (including past EA podcast authors) and editors all agreeing that EP is acting improperly. So in a sense it's not so much a question of giving a concrete reason why, but more that it seems to be a norm. Given that I don't see what EP has to gain by failing to mention original publication places, it seems that there's no reason to alienate these people.

Also, if an EP/PC/PP original story is reprinted, it would be a nice piece of advertising if people link back to the podcast in question. So, it seems only fair to give other markets the same courtesy.



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Reply #10 on: February 10, 2014, 08:28:09 PM
Not to mention that the original twitter thread has several high profile authors (including past EA podcast authors) and editors all agreeing that EP is acting improperly. So in a sense it's not so much a question of giving a concrete reason why, but more that it seems to be a norm. Given that I don't see what EP has to gain by failing to mention original publication places, it seems that there's no reason to alienate these people.

A good point, too.



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Reply #11 on: February 10, 2014, 10:03:28 PM
Interesting. As I said, I'm trying to learn, and for some things "because it's good form" is a perfectly good reason. Actually, I wish that was a reason more people chose to do more things, but that's a rant for another time. It's good to know, though, in case it comes into play on any future sites I may work on. Because to an outsider like me, it's a bit like the awkwardness of knowing who to tip -- there's no apparent logic that says I should leave a card with money in it for the garbage collector or mail person (even though people do), so when they chucked my cans down the block or scattered my mail in the yard, I still wouldn't know or learn anything from it because nobody came to me about it.

I'm with you there, for things like tipping.  I could rant, but this probably isn't the best place.  I didn't think you were being unreasonable for asking why, or anything, I just expanded the best explanation I could think of.

I'm sure we will take steps to credit everyone. As I also said, we have made those attributions in the past, even under Norm's editorship, and knowing that I would guess that these cases were more accidental omission or ignorance of the convention than a result of any malicious intent.

I didn't figure it was malice.  :)



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Reply #12 on: February 12, 2014, 01:37:09 PM
(There might be other reasons too, I'm not particularly business-minded)

Certain publications include it as a condition of reprinting the story. For example, my story "Survivor" in Crossed Genres, it is indicated in the contract that the location of first publication be given should the story be reprinted.

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Reply #13 on: February 12, 2014, 03:00:44 PM
Think of it more like when your high school English teacher made you write a research paper, and you had to include proper MLA citations to give credit to your sources.

We might let it slide here and there if some 10-year-old kid copy+pastes her favorite Squonk story onto her blog without mentioning where she got it, but if a professional SFWA-qualifying magazine started doing it, the rest of the professional world would understandably frown very, very heavily upon it, even if you could find the citation easily through Google.

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Reply #14 on: February 12, 2014, 04:08:49 PM
I've gotten a few contracts that say things like that, and I don't pay a lot of attention to it because it's a clause between a writer and a publisher and that clause demands behavior from an as-yet-unknown 3rd party publisher who will not have signed this contract. 

That being said, I do always mention source of original publication when I submit and I would mention it to a reprinter as an apparent mistake if they didn't mention it in the publication as well.  I don't list all previous publications, only because that would sometimes be tedious for stories like What Makes You Tick that have been published in 5 venues.

Think of it more like when your high school English teacher made you write a research paper, and you had to include proper MLA citations to give credit to your sources.

We might let it slide here and there if some 10-year-old kid copy+pastes her favorite Squonk story onto her blog without mentioning where she got it, but if a professional SFWA-qualifying magazine started doing it, the rest of the professional world would understandably frown very, very heavily upon it, even if you could find the citation easily through Google.

I like this analogy.




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Reply #15 on: February 12, 2014, 04:41:10 PM
It's also worth mentioning that sometimes attribution isn't enough. When PseudoPod ran the Sonya Dorman story, even through we attributed the original publication we were asked to add some additional information regarding the efforts we made to secure the rights. We had edits up on the forums and website within 24 hours of the request.

We're not going to be able to make everyone happy all the time. A reliable mechanism for contacting all the editors would address most of these problems. The Clarkesworld Twitterer comes across as rather unprofessionally passive aggressive, although I will bless their heart and assume they tried unsuccessfully to contact us. We've all got room to improve.

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Reply #16 on: February 12, 2014, 04:51:57 PM
It's also worth mentioning that sometimes attribution isn't enough. When PseudoPod ran the Sonya Dorman story, even through we attributed the original publication we were asked to add some additional information regarding the efforts we made to secure the rights. We had edits up on the forums and website within 24 hours of the request.

Sure, meeting expectations that no one has made explicit is impossible.  I don't think that anything should be expected by default except a simple attribution "This first appeared in Interzone" or something--and if something more is expected then that would need to be worked out explicitly.

We're not going to be able to make everyone happy all the time. A reliable mechanism for contacting all the editors would address most of these problems. The Clarkesworld Twitterer comes across as rather unprofessionally passive aggressive, although I will bless their heart and assume they tried unsuccessfully to contact us. We've all got room to improve.

Twitter isn't known for being a medium encouraging to professional communication.  I'll give a pass for that.  And it's a valid point whether it's passive, assertive, passive-aggressive, or aggressive.  I am acquainted with Christie Yant who is the one who said she emailed, and I trust her to have kept her word about emailing--especially when combined with not being able to get a response from Norm very well in the past.



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Reply #17 on: February 12, 2014, 10:40:20 PM
As I've now spent around 4 hours today tracking down original citations to update things at the DC (and on my birthday, I might add) and have only done about a third of the work, I feel very confident stating that it does, indeed, matter and that it helps out a LOT in tracking down where a story came from and where the text is. And I think since we're all audio (with the exception of Escape Pod), it's doubly important for our readers' sakes to do this.

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Reply #18 on: February 12, 2014, 10:58:17 PM
Another reason came to mind.   (And I realize this is all academic discussion at this point, that attributing is a thing which should be done, but still had a thought to share)

I am trying to decide what stories first published in 2013 that I want to nominate for the Hugo.  95% of my short fiction consumption comes from podcasts.  Many of those podcasts not only allow reprints, but encourage them.  So...  How do I decide from the hundreds of podcast stories that I heard in 2013 which ones are eligible for Hugos?  I can narrow down what I look at by starting with my Best Of lists for the year, but that just shrinks the overall pool, doesn't help decide which are eligible.

Toasted Cake (for example) attributes first publisher very consistently, with links to the source when available.  If there is no attribution, then it was first published by Toasted Cake and therefore is eligible.  If there is an attribution with a link or the name of the original publication, then I can follow that trail to find out when that was originally published to see if it was within 2013.  Pretty easy, though a little repetitive.

For a podcast that doesn't attribute first publisher very consistently, I don't know if it's a reprint and if it was a reprint when it was first published.  I then have to rely on Google-fu with the author and title to find a biblio page for the author or a search hit on one of the previous.  It's not at all clear whether I get that right because, for instance, the reprint publication might take up the first 5 pages of the search results if the original publication was very old or not wildly popular.  This becomes a potentially much more time consuming task, taking more work than it would really need to take.



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Reply #19 on: February 13, 2014, 01:54:17 PM
Another place where maintaining original attribution is important is pro-pay for new work versus reprint payment. Only one of the three EA casts does that now, but you need the info as to whether it's a new work or a reprint in order to complete the sale. If all three go pro pay at some point in the future, I expect our process will get even tighter.

Also, isfdb.org is a great place to see what stories got printed where. It's also wiki-ish so content can be contributed if you notice something missing over there.

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Reply #20 on: February 14, 2014, 09:12:11 AM
FYI:  Sounds like there is an active effort going right now to add attributions to the online posts at both EP and Drabblecast.  So what had become largely an academic exercise is now even more so.   :)



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Reply #21 on: February 14, 2014, 01:14:00 PM
Also, isfdb.org is a great place to see what stories got printed where. It's also wiki-ish so content can be contributed if you notice something missing over there.

Though updating is not perfect. I tried to update my page, made all the updates, submitted them, and... nothing.

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Reply #22 on: August 23, 2014, 08:16:42 AM
I've gotten a few contracts that say things like that, and I don't pay a lot of attention to it because it's a clause between a writer and a publisher and that clause demands behavior from an as-yet-unknown 3rd party publisher who will not have signed this contract. 

That being said, I do always mention source of original publication when I submit and I would mention it to a reprinter as an apparent mistake if they didn't mention it in the publication as well.  I don't list all previous publications, only because that would sometimes be tedious for stories like What Makes You Tick that have been published in 5 venues.

Think of it more like when your high school English teacher made you write a research paper, and you had to include proper MLA citations to give credit to your sources.

We might let it slide here and there if some 10-year-old kid copy+pastes her favorite Squonk story onto her blog without mentioning where she got it, but if a professional SFWA-qualifying magazine started doing it, the rest of the professional world would understandably frown very, very heavily upon it, even if you could find the citation easily through Google.

I like this analogy.
True, but it could be an agreement between the author and the publisher that the author will require it of any hypothetical 3rd party.

This would affect future reprints, but would not be attempting to directly bind a party who is not a signatory. It would be more like the publisher is buying the right to be identified as the first publisher, along with the right to publish.