Date: 2006-10-27 03:44 pm (UTC)
imagine the chaos if published authors jerked books out of printing at will(of course, there are some I'd pay to do just that. . .).

Luckily for the literary/publishing world at large, they can't do that (since they've signed an agreement with the publisher). I know there are some author who dearly wish they could erase every memory of their published work--the guy who wrote The Anarchist Cookbook, who made the mistake of giving control of the copyright to the publisher rather than keeping it for himself, is on record as saying he recants everything in the book and wishes that it would go out of print, but it's (literally, since he signed the copyright away) out of his hands now.

I've heard people claim that posting something publically on the web constitutes publication (usually in the context of "and that's why fanfic is technically illegal and Anne Rice can sue your ass, whereas she could do nothing but whine if you wrote it out longhand and showed your notebook to your neighbour"), which means that deleting it is kind of like pulling your book from print. Deleting it and erasing your digital footprints from every archive on the web is sort of the online equivalent of not only not renewing the printer's contract, but having the book removed from public library shelves as well. And if you say that you don't want people to keep copies of it saved to their harddrives (the extremist version of "my fic is dead to me, and I want it dead to the world"), it's like going into used bookstores and pulling copies off their shelves as well.

Some people seem to forget the rant part of that community.


At least no one's accused other posters on the thrad of being "OMG mean" yet. (I swear, somebody pops up on the community denouncing it for negativity at least once a month).

Also, icon cuteness ^_^.
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