Science Fiction - Double Feature

[ffutures]

I spent most of the morning and afternoon at the Joint AGMs of the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) and Science Fiction Foundation (SFF), which are combined with panels and talks related to the work of these groups.

In the past I was a member of the BSFA, which is primarily a fan group with publications including reviews, news, etc., but as I got busier as a writer I let my membership lapse - I simply found that I never seemed to have time to read their publications or attend meetings - there always seemed to be something more important to do. I joined the SFF when it was first formed - it's basically an educational foundation which publishes a quarterly review of papers on various SF-related topics. I've continued to support the Foundation since from time to time I've found it a useful source of information, and have donated books and magazines occasionally.

My impression, after thinking it over, is that I'll probably keep going the way I am - my interests tend to the scholastic, and I get my fannish fix from livejournal, newsgroups, and conventions. I'm not knocking the BSFA, it just seems a little less useful to me and relevant to my main areas of interest.

Incidentally, the final item of the day was a panel organized by major_clanger, who is pursuing a career as an Intellectual Property lawyer, the other panellists being me and John Clute (SF Encyclopaedia etc.) discussing copyright problems related to SF and fandom including fanfic, the recent Dr. Who knitting pattern case, the Star Wars stormtrooper costume case, and the Harry Potter Lexicon thing. Some interesting stuff came out of it, though at the moment it's probably fair to say that nobody is quite sure which way the courts are going to go on most of it. I hope that major_clanger will eventually put a summary on his livejournal; I'm not going to pre-empt him on this, since I would really hate to get things wrong.

In all an interesting day, and a nice break from routine.

Comments

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Dr. Who knitting pattern case[..]

I hadn't heard of any of these - if there is a summary posted eventually then I'd be interested in a link.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'll post a link if he does - the Dr. Who case was that someone put knitting patterns for Ood and Adipose on a web site, someone else then made some and tried to sell them on eBay. As well as going after the eBay vendor, the BBC made noises about going after the person who posted the patterns, then backed away rapidly, presumably on legal advice.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Completely off-topic, but I thought you should see this, if you haven't already:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/06/steampunk-dalek-1.html

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Andres Guadamuz (one of my lecturers on the Edinburgh LLM, incidentally) has a very good series of reports on the dispute at his blog, Technollama:

Partners in Copyright Crime

Of fan art, mash-ups and licences

An end to the knitting saga

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Many thanks!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I've seen it.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that! Interesting and, IMHO, a bit of an over-reaction on the BBC's part. I can see pursuing someone making a profit on Ebay but I think they really should have ignored the knitting pattern in the same way that they do fanfic!

It's a bit of a dice roll sometimes what the big companies will do. I ran afoul of Hewlett Packard one time because of something I'd posted on my site. Fortunately I had contacts inside the company that were able to smooth things over for me.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Sounds much more interesting than the copyright panel I attended at a library association con years ago :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It was good fun.