General News

Susan and I are headed to her brother’s home in California for Thanksgiving, so I will be gone for a few days.

To everyone who gives a little piece of their day to indulge my rantings, I am both flattered and humbled all at the same time. The reaction to this site has been remarkable, and it never fails to humble me that there are people out there who find what I have to say worth their time. To all of you who do so, I am grateful.

And to all who come here, Susan and I hope that each and every one of you has a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. And please keep those good men and women who are defending this great country of ours around the globe in mind as you do.

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Well, I’ve been a dedicated hockey fan for more than 30 years. One can’t have grown up in Philadelphia in the ’70’s and not be a hockey fan. Susan and I have been going to hockey games together for about ten years, and I’ve been to a lot of games in my life, NHL and minor league.

Tonight, I saw something I have never seen before. And that takes some doing.

Nashville came in 8-0. The Blue Jackets played very hard tonight and got some superb goaltending from Martin Prusek. The Jackets led 2-1 with less than a minute to go in the game. However, when a bad penalty was called on one of the Jackets, Nashville scored the tying goal with less than 40 seconds to go in regulation on the resulting power play after pulling their goaltender and exploiting a two man advantage. Then, 25 seconds into the OT, one of the Jackets took a bad penalty, and I figured it was all over. How many penalties can a team be expected to kill?

And then, the impossible happened. Defenseman Adam Foote–who has never been known for being a scorer–then beat Tomas Vokoun short side and scored a shorthanded breakaway goal to win the game 35 seconds into the OT. How often do you see a defenseman do that? Not often.

The new NHL is very different from the pre-lockout version. The game is faster. I, for one, do NOT miss the neutral zone trap. I like the new game…..

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Sorry I’ve been quiet. I’ve been blasting through the page galleys of my new book, which is just about ready to go to the printer. I finished them tonight, and expect to resume ranting tomorrow night, after watching the sorry Columbus Blue Jackets lose again.

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Alice Gayley was kind enough to pass on an excellent piece from today’s Washington Post that spells out my position on the issue of Google’s scheme of massive copyright infringement better than I can.

This is, by the way, precisely the same argument that the musicians used in objecting to the Napster concept. And, as I have pointed our repeatedly, what Google proposes here is, in my humble opinion, a copyright infringement scheme on a scale more massive–and infinitely more egregious–than Napster, because a corporate giant is perpetrating it, not a bunch of college kids looking to download a few free songs.

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Well, now a publisher’s trade association has joined the fray in the fight against Google’s massive copyright infringement scheme. The Association of American Publishers’s press release states, quite correctly, that “the bottom line is that under its current plan, Google is seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers.”

This new lawsuit joins the suit filed by the Author’s Guild last month. The press release issued when the Author’s Guild suit was filed said, “This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law. It’s not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied.”

Google apparently still doesn’t get it. Its response to the AAP lawsuit announcement is “Google Print is a historic effort to make millions of books easier for people to find and buy. Creating an easy-to-use index of books is fair use under copyright law and supports the purpose of copyright: to increase the awareness and sales of books directly benefiting copyright holders,” said David Drummond, Google’s vice president of corporate development and general counsel. “This short-sighted attempt to block Google Print works counter to the interests of not just the world’s readers, but also the world’s authors and publishers.” Never mind that it constitutes a flagrant violation of even the most fundamental concepts of copyright law. Never let the details get in the way of a good program idea, I guess. Or so seems Google’s attitude.

As for me, I can’t see how having my intellectual property–my blood, sweat, and tears–available to the world for free–with no payment of royalties to me–or any other author, for that matter–benefits either my publisher or me, but I’m just a dumb lawyer. What do I know as compared to the all-knowing Google?

That Google is trampling on the intellectual property rights of authors and publishers is of no account and of no consideration to Google. I guess it’s going to take losing these two lawsuits–and the concomitant judgments, which will include awards of attorney’s fees–for them to get it.

This litigation interests me a great deal for a variety of reasons. As an attorney who has dabbled in intellectual property law for the better part of twenty years, it’s of great interest to me professionally and intellectually. IP issues have always fascinated me. As a publisher, I have a vested interest in protecting the copyright rights of my authors and of doing everything I can possibly do to maximize the company’s profits to benefit its shareholders, including preventing our works from being readily available to the world for free. Finally, as an author who has not consented to the infringement of his copyrights by Google, I am outraged by their policy. The combination of these factors means that I am a zealous supporter of this litigation. As I pointed out in a prior post on this blog, I view Google’s program as being virtually identical to the sorts of copyright infringement that the U. S. Supreme Court outlawed in the Grokster decision earlier this year. If Grokster is illegal, so, too, should this program be.

Let’s hope that the AAP and the Author’s Guild prevail.

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My wife and I try to take a little vacation of some sort every October. I promised her one that has nothing at all to do with the Civil War this year, so we’re heading to Las Vegas for a few days later this evening. This means that I will be off line for a few days. See y’all when we get home next Tuesday.

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I wanted to take a moment to thank two people who inspired me to do this. Prof. Mark Grimsley of The Ohio State University has a unique blog. Mark uses his blog in an effort to explore ways to assist in the evolution of academic military history. It’s called Blog Them Out of the Stone Age. Mark focuses on the role that military history plays in the academic world, and also offers interesting insights into his own personality and what drives him. I have always admired and respected his courage in putting himself out there in such a public fashion. When I told Mark that I was thinking about doing this, he was full of encouragement.

Dimitri Rotov maintains another especially interesting blog called Civil War Bookshelf. Dimitri has very strong opinions about what does and does not make a good Civil War book, and he’s not afraid to share those opinions. I may not always agree with those very strong opinions, but I always respect Dimitri’s opinions on things.

These two bloggers always impress me with the regularity with which they post, and the consistent quality of their posts. They have inspired me to attempt this, and I can only hope that the things that I post are as well considered and as what they post.

Brett Schulte’s blog is another one I read regularly, although it was only started a couple of weeks before I launched mine. I have posted a couple of guest posts on Brett’s blog and will continue to do so from time to time. Drew Wagenhoffer’s blog launched at the same time that Brett’s did. I read Drew’s posts every day, too. My blog was already in the works when Brett and Drew launched theirs, so I can’t honestly say that they influenced me to do my own, but I neverhtless appreciate what they post.

Thanks to all of you. I hope that I meet your expectations.

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