Sunday afternoon, Potterdämmerung approaching

[cleolinda]

Re: The Orphan Works Act that a few people have commented or emailed me about: Actually, ursulav is saying that it's a dead issue: "Everything referenced is from the 2005-2006 legislative session. There is no current bill. Anything resembling such a bill died in committee years ago. This is not something you need to freak out about right now.... Relax. It's not happening. You can check the public record and find that there are no such bills currently before Congress." Apparently there was another hearing in March, but it's currently not in play. More here from kynn and here from maradydd. If and when it's written into a bill again, I will deal with it then. I'm too tired to deal with it now.

My goal is to get through POA and then GOF tonight, although I don't know if that's possible. I had briefly forgotten (!) that the Lexicon trial starts tomorrow, plus I've got regular linkspam to do, so I'm going to get kind of hammered, I think. The problem here is that my "deadlines" are all flexible and self-imposed, so rather than get crushed by work, the work just isn't going to get done in the window of time that I'd like. Sadface. But POA's coming along pretty well--about 85 out of 115 notes done so far, give or take. GOF will probably have fewer notes, if only because several general HP items will be taken care of in POA.

(In case you're wondering, the kind of notes I've got so far are: the origin of the phrases "no dice," "Let's blow this popsicle stand," and "woot"; actors who were considered for Dumbledore after Richard Harris's death; and the story behind "dead from [noun].")

The other problem is that both POA and "King Arthur" are striking me now as really, really repetitive--I think I had gotten into this idea that everything had to be dialogue format, whereas I moved more into paragraph territory while writing the book. So it's tempting to do quick hard revisions--not new jokes necessarily, but weed out some of the redundancy. Also, "Cloverfield" now strikes me as a few good jokes afloat in a sea of not-that-interesting, which is kind of depressing. But any revisions will be presented on the CD/download along with originals (the annotations will probably be on the originals).

(Did I mention that I was thinking of offering the CD on Cafe Press, as previously mentioned, for people who do want to buy it as a gift, but offering a direct download for people who'd rather have it now [and not have to pay shipping, either]? It would still be $15 either way, because that's the fairest price I can think of--$15 for 15 annotated pieces--but with a direct download, I'd get all of it. Again: thoughts?)

Comments

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

I'll buy it either way, but I vote direct download. I'd rather 1) not deal with shipping, 2) get it now, and 3) give you all of my money.

[incogra.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. Cafepress handles the direct download? And they don't take a cut?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No, I'd just handle it myself. When you get a PayPal payment, they tell you that you've gotten it from such and such an email address. I'd just reply back with the download link, which I'd probably put on SendSpace and change out every now and then.

[junebugged.livejournal.com]

I would love to buy m15m and i will even happily pre-pay for a 15m of the upcoming Wolverine, because I am a freak for Liev/Hugh.

Oooh also Deception, because Hugh and Ewan in the same movie is almost as squee-worthy as Hugh and Liev.

So... yeah, I'll give you my money.

[macbethchild.livejournal.com]

Oh, screw it. I'll give you my money too. *grumblesnerfgrumble*

Seriously, though, I really love this idea. I know a few of my friends who will love it as well, and will let them know.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Just for you, babe:

http://www.emrocks.com/GWLaw%20-%20EntLaw&IndepStudyFinalPaper.doc

I did my final project for my 2006 Advanced Entertainment Law class on none other than...the Orphan Works issue. So if you want to read about the issue as it stood in 2006 from a legal perspective (in an actual, researched-for-school, semester-long project), there you go. Feel free to link it if anyone is interested in the issue. :)

P.S. I got an A in the class, which was mostly graded on this project (at least 80% or more). My prof was really into this issue (he may have been involved in some of the discussions, if I recall correctly), so I am pretty sure if there were any glaring inaccuracies he would have alerted me to them.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, huzzah! You can actually tell us what the hell is going on!

[anolinde.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I love the direct download idea. (And we could still put it on a CD if we wanted to!)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly--if you want to back it up in whatever manner, you can. Although, since people did mention wanting to buy it as a gift for someone else, that's why I'd work up some kind of CD with a nice label. That's more of a secondary option.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on your other topic...I lurrrrved your King Arthur one. It killed me!

But hey, if you do revisions and include both, that's cool too.

Damn you and your probably-taking-my-$15-in-the-near-future. :)

[sneaky-minx.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know about the direct download option! That would be awesome, and I'd much rather that. Plus, you'd get all the profit. Would it be on cafepress or some other site that would have a cheat proof system to make sure each person pays before looking at it? Sorry, I'm an eternal pessimist.

*hugs* Best of luck with everything! Those annotations sound fab so far!

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

OMG ADIPOSE.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

the origin of the phrases "no dice," "Let's blow this popsicle stand," and "woot";
Ooh, I want to know such things. Are they the real origins or joke origins?

and the story behind "dead from [noun].")
There's a story?

It would still be $15 either way, because that's the fairest price I can think of--$15 for 15 annotated pieces--but with a direct download, I'd get all of it. Again: thoughts?
That sounds pretty good. I mean, does the physical CD offer anything the direct download doesn't? Why bother with a physical CD at all? Well, I guess you could include things like autographs or whatnot with the package. But I think the direct download is a great idea.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No, they're real origins. I mean, some of them are fuzzy origins--varying explanations, whatever--but they're not origins I just made up or anything.

The physical CD really wouldn't offer anything else, except a tangible thing you could hand to someone else as a gift. That's really the only reason I would even do it, now that the (obvious) download idea has occurred to me, and I don't expect that to be the most popular choice.

[roxieluvs.livejournal.com]

I'll be buying it either way!

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Will straight donations to your PayPal be allowed?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I guess I can put up the email I use--well, I'll have to anyway to take orders, won't I? I have some pride issues about asking for donations, but my mother keeps pointing out that I've put up all this free entertainment over the years, so it would be more like a busker's tip jar than anything, really.

[valancy-s.livejournal.com]

Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of your M15Ms, those in the book included. I think it's your best ever. Please don't change it!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aw, bless. Even if I do revise it, that will exist as an alternate version--it won't replace the original version at all, and I don't intend on posting it online (mostly because that would cause more confusion that it would be worth).

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'll buy it in either format...

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

(Did I mention that I was thinking of offering the CD on Cafe Press, as previously mentioned, for people who do want to buy it as a gift, but offering a direct download for people who'd rather have it now [and not have to pay shipping, either]? It would still be $15 either way, because that's the fairest price I can think of--$15 for 15 annotated pieces--but with a direct download, I'd get all of it. Again: thoughts?)

Any chance you'll be offering the individual pieces for digital download as well as the whole thing in a lump sum? Things get kind of tight for me, and it'd be easier for me to justify around $5 than $15 to myself.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could do that. I actually started to wonder if I might want to do that with future 15Ms--offer a $1 annotation file in addition to the free online version. I mean, the files will be so small that it wouldn't take five minutes to do separate downloads in addition to the main one.

[nimlotbradamant.livejournal.com]

I would buy a $15 download much quicker than I would buy a $15 CD plus postage plus postage time (US -to-Aussie post is...not good), to the point where this has actually made me think that I could, if sometime in the next few months I could scrape up two cents to rub together. Ah, the life of a uni student.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, dude, I've totally been there. Actually, atalantapendrag has suggested I offer each file individually (I mean, in addition to the all-15 option).

[laurelin-kit.livejournal.com]

Nooo, I adore everything about King Arthur.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Aww! Like I said... somewhere in there... though, if I do, it'll only exist as an alternate version. I wouldn't post it online to compete with the one that's already here, and you'd be able to read whichever one you wanted.

[rhodynne.livejournal.com]

I have many thoughts.

...the ones that pertain to you are YES! I will pay $15 for annotated MI15M.
:-D

[kosher-jenny.livejournal.com]

I'm reading the six misconceptions link regarding the (dead) Orphaned Works Act, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the bill sounds like a really good idea to me. Certainly there's prospect for abuse, but no more than there already is under current copyright laws. It sounds like it would be beneficial to artists and academic types who can't find or get a hold of the original copyright holders.


As far as the annotations, direct download sounds like a good option. I'd be willing to that.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer a direct download, but I'll buy either. :)

Also, for the next "OMG Congress is being an asshat, wait not this congress, last congress?" crisis, the website www.thomas.gov is great. This is the link to the library of Congress and you can search (by keyword) I think any bill ever. Maybe not ever. But it goes back a long time, and it traces legislation through all of its steps and lets you know the last place it was. So if it died in committee you can check on that. If it got voted on, passed by both houses and signed by the president, it will tell you that. And you can read the text and all the versions and stuff. It's a pretty useful website for legal research.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in either format -BUT- I am on dial-up. [yes, it's -that- slow ^_^] So how large would the download be? If it's too large [and pdfs can get bloated], then I'd much rather buy the CD, rather than try an hour[+?] download.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

They'll be .rtf files--I'm working on it in Word at the moment, and even there Prisoner of Azkaban is just 154 kb. Multiply that by 15 and we're still only talking about 2-3 mb.

[laughing-cities.livejournal.com]

I would totally buy either format! I think this is an absolutely great idea!

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Check this (http://foresthouse.livejournal.com/445551.html?thread=3314799#t3314799) out.

Somebody's making copycat sites of the Lexicon on purpose. Apparently (from the site) they plan to do a bunch of them...

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Dude, I saw that--I nearly went and got you, and then I figured you'd probably see a comment in your own journal. (I had "track comments" enabled.)