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Posts Tagged ‘copyright’

Atwood on AI

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 5, 2023| 1 Comment »

What does one of the great speculative fiction writers of our time have to say about AI (or at least, her own AI doppelgänger)?

Margaret Atwood: Murdered by My Replica?

Apparently, 33 of my books have been used as training material for their wordsmithing computer programs. Once fully trained, the bot may be given a command—“Write a Margaret Atwood novel”—and the thing will glurp forth 50,000 words, like soft ice cream spiraling out of its dispenser, that will be indistinguishable from something I might grind out. (But minus the typos.) I myself can then be dispensed with—murdered by my replica, as it were—because, to quote a vulgar saying of my youth, who needs the cow when the milk’s free?

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Photo by Fernando Rodrigues on Unsplash

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More on Bad Contracts… and One Very Good One

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

John Scalzi’s righteous assault on bad deals for authors continues, with a look at a contract from Alibi, a sibling imprint of the previously discussed Hydra. The downsides look very similar and the upsides are few and very far between:

A Contract From Alibi

So, don’t ask me how, but I have in my hands (from what I consider a reputable source) a contract from Alibi, which is the sibling imprint of Hydra, the Random House imprint that I thumped on roundly in the previous entry.

And if you need more evidence that signing over all rights for the term of the copyright is a terrible idea, check out this DBW piece on Wool author Hugh Howey’s latest contract. He cut a deal with Simon & Schuster for print rights only to the tune of a seven-figure advance. Yes, apparently Howey’s self-published e-books were bringing in $150k a month already, but no matter who you are, why sign your work over to anyone else for nothing? Heck, you’d be better off printing your book out and using it for party invitations. Or tinder. Or any other use you can think of that is controlled by you and not someone else.

Just saying.

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