Aug 18, 2011 16:02
Summary: PublishAmerica, bottomfeeder author-mill "publisher," advertised to their suckers victims authors that they would, for $49, present their book to J.K. Rowling.
Anyone who knows PA and how these things works can see that they only mean to put all the books in a crate and ship it to wherever JKR receives fan mail. The invite is ambiguously worded to fool the gullible, naive, and unsophisticated into thinking PA has some sort of "in" with JKR.
What happened next: Upon getting wind of this, Ms. Rowling, who is well-known for defending her name and her intellectual property rights, sicced her lawyers on PA.
PA's response was, in essence, "We're not doing anything wrong, so STFU."
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Why I think they're geniuses (eeeeeevil geniuses, but, tragically, geniuses):
What do we think is going to happen here? Will JKR pursue PA in an epic battle of lawyers, running them into the ground and then chopping up the corpses and dancing on the graves?
Of course not.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that JKR's legal team makes any headway against PA's carefully-worded "We promise nothing" offer. Let's assume that a judge--England has far less tolerant libel laws than the USA--finds merit in JKR's case.
Now what happens? PA, based in the USA, shouts "neener neener neener."
Okay, for the sake of argument, let's move the venue to the USA, and again assume a judge finds merit in JKR's case. Now what?
PA strings it along for a while, eventually ending with a cease-and-desist. Perhaps they even are forced to issue an apology.
What financial claim can JKR make? How does one prove financial damage by the smear to her good name? Or perhaps she might be able to claim the money PA collected for this scheme?
And what does PA get? BUCKETS AND BUCKETS OF PUBLICITY. Publicity that is hot right now, will be hot again at every stage of any legal action, up to and including the finale.
If there's one principle PA has demonstrated again and again, it's that "no publicity is bad publicity." They are trashed on the internet all over the place, and still they thrive. For every X people who see the warnings and dodge that bullet, there is some idiot who would never have heard of them, but ends up in their clutches because they read about them in some warning, but didn't actually, you know, heed the warning.
I wish I could believe that JKR will, in a service to aspiring writers everywhere, don the mantle of White Knight and pursue PA to the ends of the earth, papering them with legal briefs until they go bankrupt, and ultimately seizing all their assets in settlement of a law suit.
Alas, that's not going to happen. PA will survive this, wealthier than ever, having masterfully manipulated people (including me, right now) into having publicized them.
business of writing,
prognostication,
self-righteous wankery,
overthinking the issue,
in the news,
harry potter