burning at the centre of time

I would like to note, idly, that 'why don't they just make things available in every country, that would stop a lot of piracy' is, unfortunately, more difficult than it sounds. Mostly due to...DING...other parts of the entertainment industry and the government(s) involved!
( in case you're not interested. )

This internal bureaucracy nightmare is what's actually harming their revenue stream, and this is partially why I have very few problems wrt television and film piracy. (The other part is that honestly, your money is not going to most of the people who worked the hardest on the film or show. They've already been paid and they're not seeing anything more of it.)

They need to change the system before they can expect to see less piracy. Full stop. Open access (paid or not) is where things are going, and anyone who's not on that train will eventually be left behind, no matter how hard they kick and scream right now.

I made a note of that in nearly every paper I did as part of my MA, not that anyone important was listening.

In pluses and minuses for the first time ever!
( spoilers river song voice you know the drill. )

With thanks to lesslikepie who posted it most recently, among others.

Unbelievably white! Also male! What else is new!

( Behind the cut, I have opinions. )

In a bit of an odd mood for various reasons, but the weather is nice, which is something. In-laws were good. Got a dress for The Bro's wedding, and shoes, neither of which compromise my sense of self...this is easier said than done in the current British fashion climate, where half of everything even vaguely feminine has got rhinestones or sequins or beads or is ( tmi? )

- I need to do some RP plotting at some point.

- G+, how do I quit you? You are cleverly made (Tumblr with less weens) but so problematic, and you're reminding me of the reason I never switched to Chrome years ago--e.g. Google policies are sketchy.

I typoed that as 'Google polices'. That too.

- Watched Leverage's The Van Gogh Job with Matt and I can't decide if it was terribly sweet or rather messed up in its simplistic examination of racial issues in 1940s Oregon. I don't really have much to say about it other than that. I also wasn't sure about the ( sorta spoiler. )

- I am reading Transmetropolitan and it is all right, a clever indictment of the wtfery that is the media. Funny how things are pretty well unchanged in fifteen years, in the sense of what needs criticism and what doesn't, but it's a pity Ellis didn't anticipate streaming video.

Smith is refusing to let this Gold Key guide host prospies, because he's a trans guy. (This is despite him stating that he would inform all prospies that would be assigned to him and that they could choose not to stay with him if they were uncomfortable.)

Here are his words, and here.

Get the word out. We know already that if there is one thing TPTB at Smith hate, it's an alum stink. Especially as Reunion approaches.

(Smith's issues with regards to trans women are myriad, and while that desperately needs to come into play and be resolved, this situation needs to be addressed in and of itself, please.)

Oi, LiveJournal, I'd really like to start getting my rhipowered notifs regularly again. You know, instead of a goddamn Farmville clone I won't be using? This is getting really, really old.

(For me, RP ones are fine, apparently.)

STRIFE. /Homestuck joke

Just a heads up: this response post to the _dahne_ wanker fandom issue by sohotrightnow really moved me. It goes beyond fandom and into the big picture of micro/macroaggressions, and why reacting to microaggressions is important...yet Jules retains hope.

I don't want it to pass outside the radar.

You should read it. (Possible triggers could apply.)

The whole piracy of ebooks thing...yeah.

vito_excalibur wrote a good post elucidating her position, a lot of which I agree with, and karenhealey said some stuff in response in the LJ comments that rang really wrong to me, but I couldn't really put my finger on why. I've come back after dinner to find some responses by deepad (The politics of discussing illegal file-sharing) and colorblue (this is not a post about yoga!) that are very good in pointing out just exactly what I hadn't quite processed: just how Western the concept of intellectual property rights is, as it exists now.

Additional posts on this topic can be found at troisroyaumes' roundup.

So, before I start talking about my own POV, please consider that there are other important viewpoints on the topic...but those non-Western views dovetail with my own concept.

-----
I find it really problematic to say that you shouldn't access books illegally at all, full stop.

Firstly, I was fortunate enough to grow up in an area with a really good public library system, then went to college in an area with a fairly good library system as well; both are in the US.* Therefore, I have been privileged enough to expect to read nearly anything I want for free, given time and patience. And frankly, while in the US, I never really had the money to buy as many new books as I read, considering the cost of hardcovers and trade paperbacks even before the advent of ebooks. (I read a LOT.)

This is generally true of me overall: I don't like to buy things I don't want to own and consume again. Period.

In comparison to my past experience, the UK library system has been lacking. Birmingham was quite bad, Glasgow is better but not as good as what I'd like. According to people I've spoken to--anecdotal, but a variety of people nonetheless--the system is not as good as it was decades ago. And now, government cuts are suspected to be ripping the remaining guts out sooner rather than later.

So yeah, go ahead, tell me to make a request at my library, so they can buy a copy of your book so I can read it. They won't laugh in my face, exactly.

Assuming they can even buy a copy of your book at all, which brings me to my second point.

I now live in Britain (still Western, still with a high standard of living), but many books, even on major publishers, do not always come out here, and vice versa. (There are, for example, loads of books by FSF author Gwyneth Jones that are on a major UK imprint but completely inaccessible in the US. There's also a Jones book on Aqueduct Press that doesn't have a UK publisher, but I don't blame Aqueduct for that, it being indie.) And I really can't afford the absolutely ridiculous cost of buying from the US and shipping. Most people I know don't have that kind of expendable income. And I'm not sure why Karen Healey didn't really address this very satisfactorily (imho) in her own post.

This is not the authors' fault, but the fault of the publishing industry. What needs to be done, in my mind, is what needs to be done with television: a revision and opening of international licensing, as well as a revision of ereader accessibility and restriction. (I mean, I'd like something better, like government-funded universal library access and Creative Commons reuse/remix stuff. But that ain't happening in the current socioeconomic model.)

So...I'm kinda descending into incoherency and must sum up: I don't want to whinge about how I can't get a bunch of books...though, frankly, it frustrates me on a regular basis.

Instead, there's a deeper issue here of which my life only skims the surface due to privilege: saying that piracy is universally terrible and what...it's not good, but there is often no other access option. (Now, you don't want to go wave that in an author's face, that's just fucking stupid. And, as I noted, most authors can do fuck-all about the situation anyway.) In a globalised society, seeing reviews and recs for things dangling out of the reach of people with limited funds or not in the US stings like hell. You have to globalise access, and not just to the Western world, either.

Kinda comes down to bread and roses, friends. Bread and roses.

ETA: I believe everyone should have access to information if they want it. Less about entitlement, more about fulfilling the bullshit lip service towards this sort of thing that's been going on for ages.

* I'm not fond of US government/bureaucracy overall; this is actually probably the biggest thing I miss from the US system. Except perhaps the US Postal Service.

Stepping back from the WisCon thing because I said my piece yesterday and today others have said things much more amazingly. e.g. Karnythia.

So. Racism in Inception fic, which other people (bossymarmalade and the link she has in the post) take on far better than I can. Just...no, okay? No. Also, racism in the UK is a big big problem and not something that ends up cheekily in 'jokes'.

(By the way, why does everyone cream their pants over Eames? Seriously, I'm the only person in the universe who thought Tom Hardy was hotter as Shinzon and even then...bleh.

Oh wait, it's the White Guys Trope All slash meme again, never mind.

Yes, A/E fen on my lists, I'm overgeneralising for the sake of my point, but the point's still valid.)

I don't know what to say about the WisCon PTB firmly deciding on the Elizabeth Moon thing.

I'm not particularly relieved, because honestly, I didn't think they'd get around to doing something. Or at the very least, I didn't think they'd get around to doing something without alienating people even MORE than had already happened. (As the child of an alcoholic, I am now and have always been a massive cynic. If I expect people to let me down, then I won't be as hurt when they do.)

There's still this massive fucking divide! How can we be okay when all this shit has gone down and people are hurting?

Please note that I'm not calling anyone out in particular. I'm just stunned at the amount of work that needs to be done, yet. This is not the fuck over.

(Also, it'll be interesting to see what will happen in mainstream SF in response to this. [sigh])

I again hat-tip nisi_la for her grace and forbearance, by the way. She deserves the GoH accolade.