As I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread, writing involves time and labor. Writing well also involves a level of skill refined through training, learning and experience. Again, this effort remains invisible until you try to do it. But, as many NANOWRIMO authors (or readers) can attest, there's a galaxy of difference between typing 50,000 words and writing a good (or even adequate) novel.
Writing is an art and a technology. Just as the ability to snap a model kit together does not make someone an engineer, so too the ability to generate text does not make someone an author.
Writing is skilled labor, too. It can be shared, but it should not be taken from granted. As I asked elsewhere, would you expect a farmer to purchase land, tend it, acquire tools, and then spend resources, work and time to grow and harvest a crop, only to have other people walk off with it and hand it off to still more people (often at a profit), and then expect that farmer to get little or nothing for his work? I don't think so.
So what makes a writer different?
I'm all in favor of small-scale sharing. As anyone who reads my blog knows, I recently invited people to write NANO projects based around my own intellectual property, Deliria. That, however, was an invitation I extended to a small number of people whom I trust, within certain legal and creative parameters. If, say, Warner Brothers were to suddenly base a movie off of Deliria and assume that I'd given up my rights to profit off my creation just because the book is out of print, I would not, shall we say, be flattered. Nor would I accept Google scanning that same book (which they did) and then selling it (which they tried to do) without approval from, or payment to, me.
I tended that land. I raised that crop. What's done with it is my business, not Googlebooks' profit.
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Writing is an art and a technology. Just as the ability to snap a model kit together does not make someone an engineer, so too the ability to generate text does not make someone an author.
Writing is skilled labor, too. It can be shared, but it should not be taken from granted. As I asked elsewhere, would you expect a farmer to purchase land, tend it, acquire tools, and then spend resources, work and time to grow and harvest a crop, only to have other people walk off with it and hand it off to still more people (often at a profit), and then expect that farmer to get little or nothing for his work? I don't think so.
So what makes a writer different?
I'm all in favor of small-scale sharing. As anyone who reads my blog knows, I recently invited people to write NANO projects based around my own intellectual property, Deliria. That, however, was an invitation I extended to a small number of people whom I trust, within certain legal and creative parameters. If, say, Warner Brothers were to suddenly base a movie off of Deliria and assume that I'd given up my rights to profit off my creation just because the book is out of print, I would not, shall we say, be flattered. Nor would I accept Google scanning that same book (which they did) and then selling it (which they tried to do) without approval from, or payment to, me.
I tended that land. I raised that crop. What's done with it is my business, not Googlebooks' profit.
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