The Secret Hold

The Authors Guild and others believe that The CASE Act (S.1273) may at long last come up for a vote in the Senate.

The Copyright Alliance has a convenient page set up to help creators and their friends to fill out and send to their own senators to encourage them to co-sponsor and vote for the CASE Act.

If so inclined, please go here https://p2a.co/21l3imn and join the effort.

TheTrichordist.com has good background information on what (or who) has held up the copyright-friendly CASE Act legislation for so long.
https://thetrichordist.com/2020/07/09/oregonmanbad-senator-ronwyden-is-still-justone-senator-sneaking-around-trying-to-screw-creators-in-the-shadows-artistrightswatch/

#OregonManBad

Meanwhile, for authors with a big stake in stopping piracy, and also able to rejoice in the support of major publishers who can afford a Federal case, some are suing Kiss Library, which actually sells pirated e-books and does not pay royalties to the copyright owners and their publishers.
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/ag-members-join-amazon-publishing-and-prh-in-suit-against-kiss-library/

Do not buy e-books online from aliens... especially not from Kissly.net, Libly.net, CheapLibrary.com etc. Instead, either buy from the links on your favorite authors' websites or from their publishers' websites.

Talking of the rich and famous, allegedly, Instagram has put a blocking hold on author and Senator Marsha Blackburn's account on the day of her book launch. Surely that is wrong? It may not have made the News.

Other famously wealthy and influential Twitter communicators and writers such as Bezos, Gates, Musk, and Obama were the victims of a Twitter hack and an implausible Bitcoin scam run from their (taken-over) Twitter accounts.

Allegedly, the scammers netted $118,000 in Bitcoin from gullible Twitter followers, and the real Bezos, Gates, Musk, Obama will remain locked out, unable to reset their passwords, and unable to Tweet until the issue is resolved. That hold is probably not secret.

Blogging legally for the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP,  bloggers Andrew Martin, Maggie Pollitt, Abby Sunberg, and Ashley Wetzel quite topically discuss deep fakery.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628fa9f7-9bdf-4fab-86f5-5fdf999f25a0

Original link:
https://www.tafttechlaw.com/2020/07/deepfakes-can-mean-deep-water-and-deep-pockets-for-your-business/#page=1

Like an old favorite spaghetti western, there's some good, some bad, and some downright ugly.

Finally, Broadcast Law Blogger David Oxenford has some surprising random advice for persons who have taken to Zoom or Facebook live (as have some churches) as a substitute for in-house gatherings with music and other copyrighted materials.

The advice may be useful to authors, too.

Lexology link:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f8ce0a09-edde-4d38-877b-5d3a1f921733

Original link:
https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2020/07/articles/random-issues-to-consider-as-media-businesses-adapt-to-the-new-world-of-the-virus-music-uses-on-zoom-and-other-platforms-unlicensed-fm-transmitters/#page=1

As he says, these Covid-19 times are crazy times!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Words Matter... As Do Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar

Which is correct, "inalienable" or "unalienable"?

This aposite quiz for this particular alien romances blog is posed by legal blogger
Elizabeth Scott Moïse writing for Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough LLP. in a fascinating article about the origins of the O.E.D.

https://www.nelsonmullins.com/idea_exchange/insights/the-scrivener-word-up

or

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7ecde481-056d-4b18-85a0-4d6949aa00c3&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-09-25&utm_term=

There are many more multiple choice vocabulary perfection tests, so please check it out.

Also worth reading: the argument presented by Authors Guild on why permissionless captioning is wrong and dangerous and not in the interests of culture and authors' rights.

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/the-authors-guild-files-friend-of-the-court-brief-in-audible-captions-case/

Any traditionally published author, who has spent multiple hours striving with copy editors, editors and proof readers to perfect spelling, punctuation and grammar will understand how distressing it could be to see well-crafted script reduced to phonetically generated "captions".  Any reasonably well read person who has turned on the captions function on television should see the potential problems.

AG is most persuasive.

Finally, and nothing to do with Sp/P/G, the 2015 Fresh Fiction hack has something in common with Groundhog Day.  No matter how many times one changes ones passwords, it seeems, the hacks persist.

If you are not actively videoconferencing with someone, cover up the camera eye. Then, when/if you receive a well-written email from a shady someone trying to prove their bona fides by revealing your latest Fresh Fiction password, you will be less likely to believe that they truly have infected your device and taken naked pictures of you.  Don't even open that email.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry