Friday, October 23, 2009

Yet Another Datapoint That Copyright Terms Are Too Long

Far too many literary heirs are complete assholes with massively inflated opinions of the worth of their dead minor-poet fathers.

Hands up -- who had even heard of Louis Zukofsky before this moment?
[via Bookslut]
Your Hornswoggler is Andrew Wheeler Released into the wild 10/23/2009 12:10:00 PM
Recurring Motifs: ,

7 comments:

James Davis Nicoll said...

I kind of get the feeling the intent is to discourage interest in his father.

Fri Oct 23, 02:15:00 PM 2009
Unknown said...

I so want to put up a small quote and tell him to bring it on.

But I have other crap to deal with right now.

Fri Oct 23, 02:35:00 PM 2009
Paul said...

Hilarious, considering LZ was a Marxist. Most likely, this is an attempt by the son and Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas to ensure that the latter remains "the" expert on LZ. Lots of talk about fees but no schedule of fees. Wonder if he accepts Chinese RMBs for payment?

Fri Oct 23, 03:09:00 PM 2009
Unknown said...

Well, I have, but then ages ago we at the Johns Hopkins University Press reprinted two of his books. So, I guess that's sort of cheating.

Fri Oct 23, 04:42:00 PM 2009
Chris Roberson said...

Holy. Crap.

And he expects to make *any* "income from that property" if he actively discourages anyone to write about an author that I doubt many people have even heard of?

Genius plan.

Fri Oct 23, 06:52:00 PM 2009
Johan Larson said...

I think the most sympathetic interpretation is that Paul Zukofsky needs money badly and the academic community has a long history of playing fast and loose in quoting Louis's work without payment.

That would account for the tone of Paul's posting, the demand for payment, and the hostility to scholarship.

Sat Oct 24, 08:15:00 PM 2009
Andrew Wheeler said...

Johan: Anyone who needs money badly should not look to scholarly quotations of the work of his dead-poet father to bring in the cash; permission to quote in those venues is generally not accompanied by any substantial payment. (The writers of those articles and dissertations aren't paid in the first place.)

Assuming that he's trying to scare attention away from his father's work makes more sense.

Sat Oct 24, 09:54:00 PM 2009

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