Amazon has announced that they will soon be seeking submissions for Kindle Worlds

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

This isn’t as earth-shattering new as some are portraying it. Pocket Books has been selling Star Trek fan-fiction for decades. Yes, authors have to submit their fan-fiction to Pocket Books/Paramount. Pocket Books/Paramount decides what gets published. Authors will have to submit their fan-fiction to Amazon. Amazon, with input I am certain from the rights holders, will decide what gets published. The website already lists several content restrictions:

• Pornography: We don’t accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.
• Offensive Content: We don’t accept offensive content, including but not limited to racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language.
• Illegal and Infringing Content: We take violations of laws and proprietary rights very seriously. It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that their content doesn’t violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
• Poor Customer Experience: We don’t accept books that provide a poor customer experience. Examples include poorly formatted books and books with misleading titles, cover art, or product descriptions. We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.
• Excessive Use of Brands: We don’t accept the excessive use of brand names or the inclusion of brand names for paid advertising or promotion.
• Crossover: No crossovers from other Worlds are permitted, meaning your work may not include elements of any copyright-protected book, movie, or other property outside of the elements of this World.

This will make selling fan-fiction in the specified universes easier. Selling fan-fiction in other universes will still be as illegal as it was previously. Publishing, but not selling, fan-fiction in other universes will remain as illegal as it was previously.

The only legal questions I have are related to the fact that the current acquired universes seem to be television shows based on written works. Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar. Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard. Amazon says they acquired the rights to the universes from Warner Brothers. Meaning, I think, that in addition to Amazon’s cut, and the fan-fiction author’s cut, Warner Brothers will get a cut. Will the author of the original series get a cut? Did Amazon ask the original authors for permission? Did they need to? If they only have Warner Brother’s permission, do the fan-fiction authors have to be careful about using characters and plot references that only appear in the novels, and not in the television show?

Update: Their press release indicates the rights were obtained from Alloy Entertainment – the book publishing arm of Warner Brothers. This suggests that Warner Brothers/Alloy own the rights to both the novels and television series, in which case there should be no legal issue.

Let’s say the following events occur. (I have a friend who is wondering…)

1] You purchase tickets online to an event
2] You arrive at the event, and the box office agent has you recorded as having purchased twice as many tickets as you are aware of purchasing
3] You protest, “I only purchased X tickets, and only received an online email receipt for X tickets”
4] Box office agent queries boss, and receives permission to resell your extra tickets and hand you the cash.
5] It is emphasized this isn’t normally done, but the boss OKd it, and you express your gratitude.
6] You return home, check your online bank account, and confirm – only one set of tickets was purchased
7] You realize you basically attended a free event, but the venue is out $X. (You did purchase drinks while there, so they did make some money off you.)
8] But you also realize the boss gave the OK, so the box office peon isn’t going to get in trouble for it if the likely electronic blip is discovered.
9] The facts don’t change in your bank account – let’s hypothetically give it a week.

Do you feel morally obligated to return the extra cash to the venue?
Or is this the Monopoly-equivalent “Bank error in your favor, collect $X”

This year for National Poetry Month, I am once again going to attempt to write 30 poems in 30 days. However, I’m not likely to post all of them.

There will be a poem posted every day of April at Generations of Poety – The eZine for Genealogists. None of these poems will have been written by me, but they will all have been selected by me, as I am the editor of this new poetry e-zine.

Public Displays of Affection

should cease being gross
after junior high.

I enjoy holding her hand in public;
embracing;
laying my lips on hers;
giving and receiving
a neck massage
on a park bench.
.
These should not be privileges
I somehow earn.

I’m not talking about the obscene.
But if you’re comfortable
seeing me and her
you should remain comfortable
if it’s him and him.

If you’re not, seek help.
It’s your problem.
Not theirs.

This entry originally appeared on December 30, 2004
. I am running a repeat because I’ve received complaints about the lack of posts here, and running repeats is an easy fix.

Odi:

11.27 ≠ 12. Not in any mathematical universe I am aware of.

You might think, “What’s a mere .73? No one in their right minds would complain about so small a difference. But the difference is significant, trust me.

What am I talking about? Soda cans. The metric system steals .73 ounces from the loyal soda drinker. How? Simple. 1/3 of a liter = 11.27 ounces. It’s as close as they can get to the standard 12 oz US can in the metric system with a “logical” metric unit. They could have used .35 liters, which is 11.835 ounces, or even .36 liters, which is 12.173, which would have gifen the metric consumer a benefit. But neither 7/20 of a liter, nor 9/25 of a liter really make any sense. So they used 333 ml, or 1/3 of a liter.

These soda cans look small. If there was a six pack of 11.27 ounce cans next to a six pack of 12 ounce cans, I doubt there’s anybody on this earth who would buy the 11.27 ounce cans. (Assuming the price per ounce was equivalent.)

Sure…it’s kind of nice to know that 1 sixpack is exactly equivalent to a 2 liter bottle, but that’s about the only thing that can be said in its favor. (And the 2 liter bottle is a strange anomaly in the US…one of the few things we buy in metric units)

2 liters, by the way, is 67.628 Ounces. A US sixpack is 72 ounces. So there’s 4.372 extra ounces of soda in every US sixpack compared to a European Metric sixpack.

The significance of this difference was easily detectable on the grocery store shelves of the British Caribbean island I recently vacationed at by one fact alone: They sold beer in 12 oz cans. Your loyal beer drinker will absolutely refuse to accept anything less. Soda drinkers are forced to suffer.

Amo:

* Multiplying and dividing by 10 is so easy.
* The French Revolutionary Calendar is a thing of beauty

November 9th and 10th are the anniversary of several events in World History, most prominently the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and in 1938, Kristallnacht (sometimes referred to as Pogromnacht), which is often looked at as the start date for The Holocaust.

In past years I have done a comparison of the results for Google News searches on several key phrases. (I performed the searches last year, and recorded the information, even though I didn’t create a post. If anyone really wants to see them, I will share them.)

This year’s results are interesting foremost because this is not a major anniversary of either event.
“Kristallnacht” OR “Pogromnacht” = 648 results
“Berlin Wall” = 660 results

[Note: In past years I conducted searches on some other phrases which I am not bothering with this year.]

This doesn’t really indicate that the press has finally found the balance that I wished for when I began this annual accounting. It means that Google News has found a more diverse selection of news sources.

It’s possible to limit one’s search on Google News to the location of news sources.

Limiting the results to USA news sources
“Berlin Wall” = 355 results
“Kristallnacht” OR “Pogromnacht” = 166 results

There is definitely still a marked difference in results for the American press. A difference that appears to be counterbalanced in the opposite direction by the non-American press.

I wrote this post two years ago, and it’s sat in my blog’s drafts folder since then. It’s time to release it to the world!

Blind Lemming Chiffon participates in his first meme.

Rules: Post 3 things you’ve done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done. Indulge in remorse if someone calls you out on a listed item.

Obviously, this meme began on LiveJournal, or somewhere else with a “Friends-list”. We will reinterpret this to mean any reader of this blog. Yes, that’s you.

This seems to be the inverse of the popular drinking game, “I Never” (Where you proclaim something you’ve never done, and anybody else who has done it, has to drink.) So, if one of my readers has done one of the below, let me know, so I can imbibe the proper amount of alcohol.

1) I’ve read over 1500 books in a 12-month period. (1509 in First grade, which is actually a 9-month period, so I am being generous. I know I participated in the Summer Reading Program at my local library the summer after 1st grade and read an additional 100 books. These books weren’t long. I was in first grade.)

2) Played for an entire season on an undefeated baseball team, while striking out every at bat. (Optimist Baseball. I think I was in 3rd grade. Luckily there were others on my team who were better athletes.)

3) Knew what a catheter was from first-hand experience prior to age 18.

Archon is this weekend – October 1-3. I thought I would post my planned activities, in case any friends or stalkers wished to find me. I am not yet a writer behind a panel desk; just a fan attending the con. However, I did enter the Archon Writer’s Contest.

Friday – October 1

10 AM (if I manage to get to the con that early) — Researching Historical and Fantasy Novels – Geneva
11:10 AM — Different types of publishing and how to choose the right market – Zurich
12:20 PM — find lunch somewhere
1:30 PM — Opening Ceremonies – Matterhorn
2:40 PM — Filk Writer’s Workshop – Davos
3:50 PM — Wander around con — maybe go to dealer’s room — art room — grab dinner
6:10 PM — Writer’s Workshop – Poetry – Zurich
7:20 PM — Filk Concert in the Round – Matterhorn
8:30 PM — grab dinner if I didn’t manage to do it earlier
9:40 PM until I collapse — Open Filk – Davos

Saturday – October 2

9-11 AM — **
11:10 AM — Paranormal Plotting Writers Workshop (2 hours) – Zurich
1:30 PM — Writer’s Workshop – Editing and the Necessary Art of Revision
2:40 PM — Archon Writer’s Contest Critique Interviews – Zurich
3:50 PM — Twitter, Facebook, New Media and Marketing – Basel
(or, if I want to risk spending money, the Charity Auction – Matterhorn
5 PM – 7 PM — **
8 PM – get in line for seating at the Masquerade
9 PM – Grande Masquerade – Versailles
After the Masquerade until I collapse – Open Filk – Davos

Sunday October 2
1:30 PM – Luke Ski Concert – Matterhorn
2:40 PM – Filk in the Round Concert – Matterhorn

** – I will be sitting behind a “Fan Table” handing out fliers for the USS Discovery, a local SF/Fantasy fan organization