Abort: not for posting
From: Plainman <an10176@anon.nymserver.com>
Subject: {ASSD} Copyright and a.s.s. (repost) (fwd)
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
Path: qz!not-for-mail
Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam
Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Original-Message-Id: <199707151438.IAA22716@shaman.lycaeum.org>


                       
Eli - This piece (posted to a.s.s.d.) isn't a story, but you can post and
archive it or not, as you see fit, anyway - PM

**********


Kim says she edits other people's stories to change features that squick
her, like the (for her) excessive youth of some characters. She says she
expects to be flamed for her confession of this quirk in this forum.  She
knows we are mostly a bunch of authorial authority freaks, all anal about
our every comma and all. So she adds, defensively - hey I only do the
nasty (change stories) in the privacy of my home! (Now making guys wear
panties and kicking them in the balls when they give me trouble, that's my
public side, and of course no one will object to THAT...) 

Some folks indeed good-naturedly say, yeah, they DO object to her deviant
and perverted editing behavior. They point out that she is no longer
keeping it private when she talks about it on a.s.s.d.  She is FLAUNTING
it.

Taria comes back and says Kim is cool cuz she is managing to be
post-modern (like hip-hop guys) and ye olde (like Homeric bards) all at
the same time. (Hey, Taria, if we're going to get all intellectual, what
about jokes, the most striking and universal example of the collective
appropriation of products of the individual imagination?)

I say, first, in the confessional mode, I personally do correct things
like "lay-lie" mistakes (absolutely pandemic!) in stories I download,
because they distract me from the primary business of getting off on the
story. There I am, reading along and starting to writhe pre-orgasmically,
and my literary partner writes "So she lays down on the bed..." - and,
kablooie, the lead goes right out of my pencil. So I change it. (An author
might well object that "lay-lie"  mistakes have gotten so common in Gen X
English prose that they are really no longer mistakes but accepted usage,
so I am not simply correcting a mistake that is like a misprint, but
rather adulterating his/her work by archaizing it, conforming it to
obsolete usage.)

Second, on the larger issue, I say forget about author's rights, at least
this author's. In the immortal words of whoever it was, STEAL MY STUFF.
Adulterate it, edit it, sell it, make gigantic porno-corporate profits on
it. Don't give me credit - please!  Tommy, come back - some of us love
you. Put my stories on that CD and sell that sucker big-time. Send the
little Tommies to college with it. 

I want to make clear don't have any aesthetic or philosophical reason for
this, and don't disapprove of anyone taking a different view. The truth is
my apparently ultra-laid-back anarchistic yippie-type attitude results
from my very-up-tight intention of continuing to maintain my anonymity
while engaging in the shockingly dirty talk that pervades this medium. 
(Hey, I'm a respectable citizen! I go to PTA meetings, where I try to put
a few moves on Mrs. McGillicuddy, whom you all know as Celeste. If it came
out that I was a vile pornographer, the other parents would suspect
something was up when I hung around after the meeting to chat up my kid's
English teacher...) 

Anyway, said anonymity removes the plausibility from any threat I might
make about pursuing violators of my intellectual property rights. 
Plainman, being imaginary and all, can't file and prosecute a lawsuit. So
if I huffed and puffed about the dire legal consequences of tampering with
my sacred output I'd be sorta like the grocer who leaves his fresh fruit
and veggies out on the sidewalk stand overnight, guarded by a big sign
that says "Private Property!  Don't Steal!" 

Let me add that invocation of copyright law is DEEPLY implausible even on
the part of people who claim to be willing to emerge from the closet,
waving legal papers. It is not a crime to infringe copyright; all you can
threaten is a civil lawsuit. Do you know what it would cost to hire a
lawyer at hourly rates to pursue a copyright infringement claim in a case
like that? Do you know how little damages you would likely recover? 

Of course I might make a purely moral appeal to those who otherwise are
tempted to make big bucks by reselling or adulterating my stuff. This
might have a really big effect on those folks.  Yeah, right - they are
real moral people. (Well, moral jawboning did have an effect on poor
Tommy, you say.  Yeah, but that PROVES he wasn't in it for the money, and
all it accomplished was to cost us a useful archive.) 

Or I might say - whether it's likely to be enforced or not, and whether
it's right or wrong, you shouldn't do it because IT'S AGAINST THE LAW. 
Yeah right again. Just like I don't smoke dope or play poker for money
and always drive under 55. 

So I say to myself - hey, dude, relax, spread'em, prepare to enjoy it.
(Then I think: shit, what if no one WANTS the stuff...?)

Plainman

*If you want to mail to me, just use the function on your news- or
mailreader that automatically sends email to the sender or poster.* 
*To find out more about this (free) anonymous remailer, mail to
help@anon.nymserver.com, with a blank message line*







-- 
+--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+
| story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us |
| Archive site +--------------------+------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ |
\ <URL:http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica/assm/>    .../assm/faq.html> /