Harper Lee sues for copyright of To Kill a Mockingbird

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22409195

by ComputerGuru • 13 years ago

81 43 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

mhartl• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure the most common reaction to this will be "Wait—Harper Lee is alive?"

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

It's easy to understand why you have that reaction when you realize that Lee is Boo Radley.

WildUtah2• 13 years ago

+1 funny.

The author is the protagonist, who is female. I'm astonished at how many commenters expected an author whose only book is told by a female first person protagonist to be male.

In real life, Boo Radley is, of course, Truman Capote.

niuzeta• 13 years ago

seconded, and ashamed... :(

colkassad• 13 years ago

Mine was "He's a she?"

I knew Harper Lee was alive from listening to the excellent audiobook On Writing, authored and narrated by Stephen King. He stated his astonishment that To Kill a Mockingbird was the only novel she ever wrote, but in a manner that never conveyed her gender (that I recall, anyway).

I even read the book years before without realizing that the author was a woman. It's the only assigned reading I have ever had that I couldn't put down.

mistercow3• 13 years ago

If I'm not mistaken (and I'm having trouble finding a reference, so I might be), part of the reason that she chose to publish as Harper Lee (as opposed to including her full name, Nelle) was to make her name more androgynous. Basically the same concept as Jews changing their names in Hollywood, but because of sexism instead of antisemitism.

1123581321• 13 years ago

That she was content with one novel infuriated Truman Capote, who desperately wished to write again but found himself unable.

rosstafarian• 13 years ago

Harper Lee is a very private person, almost never gives interviews and hasn't written any other books, so yeah very understandable reaction. I really love to kill a mockingbird, still remember being assigned to read it in 7th grade. The teacher actually started by reading the first part of the book to us in class and i was hooked, went home and actually read ahead(quite a big deal for a bored 7th grader that barely did enough to get by when he had his IRC friends waiting). I think thats a huge reason for me being an avid reader today.

I really hope this Pinkus guy gets what he deserves. People that take advantage of the elderly are right near child molesters on the scumbag scale, and forcing some one that obviously values their privacy to have to make a public spectacle of themselves like this should be a crime in its own right.

anonymouz• 13 years ago

> I really love to kill a mockingbird, ...

What a wonderful example sentence for why quotes are needed in grammar.

I guess this is the English language equivalent of an SQL injection.

meric• 13 years ago

Probably because the book was set in 1930's.

sp332• 13 years ago

I never quite liked the lynch mob scene. I don't completely disagree that a mob can be talked down that way, but it seemed too sudden. Then, a couple of years ago, I saw a study published about men and women and aggression. Individually, men acted more aggressively than women (in some competitive game they made up). But in an faceless mob, the women were twice as aggressive as the men. As soon as the women were singled out again, they went back to "normal." This made that scene more intelligible, since to Harper Lee, being called out of a mob by name would have the effect shown in the book.

Aqueous4• 13 years ago

Wow. Mr. Pinkus (it is alleged) took advantage of his own uncle's death by stealing the rights of an elderly woman to her award-winning, classic American novel. Then he tried to avoid paying his dead uncle's company or estate its due. Mr. Pinkus is a wonderful human being.

I'm no fan of copyright and this is why. The very fact that it can be transferred like property, even "accidentally," means it is essentially meaningless. It is not actually tied to the concept of an author's right to his or her own work, and if it is trying to protect that right, it is failing.

gonehome• 13 years ago

It isn't even supposed to be about protecting that 'right'. It was supposed to be an incentive to create for the public's benefit with the limited time monopoly being simply the means to do so.

I have an older post about it here: http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/16427595132/

mtgx• 13 years ago

I agree. I really dislike the fact that copyrights can be "transferred" to another person or entity. The music labels especially have been abusing this the most, and are basically coercing any many artists into giving them the full rights of their music, and then become their employees. The labels should be partners in promoting a song or an album, and nothing more. They shouldn't be entitled to the artists work, and then expect royalties for a century from it, while keeping extending the copyrigh term to infinity.

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

I agree. I really dislike the fact that copyrights can be "transferred" to another person or entity.

But you agree (I assume) that people should have copyrights over their books or music. So, I wrote this wonderful song but now I need upfront money to buy a house /pay for cancer treatment /daughter's college. Why shouldn't I be able to sell it? It's mine, isn't it?

Angostura• 13 years ago

> The very fact that it can be transferred like property, even "accidentally," means it is essentially meaningless.

In what respect? If I create a work and someone would like to buy the rights from me, why shouldn't I be allowed to sell the rights?

mistercow3• 13 years ago

I think most people agree you should be able to "sell the rights" in the sense of licensing them to someone, and to allow others to sublicense, and to enter contracts that grant exclusivity for sublicensing.

What's somewhat bizarre is that you can permanently transfer ownership of the work, making it legally as if the other person was the original creator.

Aqueous4• 13 years ago

Because the law is recognizing something that didn't happen. If I transfer my copyright to someone else, the law then views that person as the originator, owner and creator of that work, legally speaking. But it is not true. I created the work, not the person to whom I transferred the copyright, and no legal formality can change that fact. The law is saying something that isn't true.

I suppose all ownership is this way. My answer, then, is that creating something is fundamentally different than owning it. Your creation of something isn't property that can be transferred.

droithomme2• 13 years ago

"I'm no fan of copyright and this is why"

So without copyright anyone can print To Kill a Mockingbird without paying royalties to Harper Lee. How would that be a better system. Should she make her money charging admission to public readings of her work, as is proposed for musicians (making income from giving concerts rather than selling recordings) in a copyrightless world?

aninhumer• 13 years ago

You're assuming that the only alternative to copyright is to have no incentive structure at all. There are other models with their own advantages and disadvantages. This is one particular weakness of copyright that an alternative system might avoid.

Aqueous4• 13 years ago

Copyright is nearly useless in a world where there is an infinite supply of any given work for negligible cost. Anyone can print anything without paying royalties to anyone, with the only actual barrier between them and doing so being an unenforcable, obsolete law made for a world with a finite supply of a work.

But I read Harper Lee's work and enjoyed it. I want to pay her for it, so I don't just steal it without doing so. But I also don't want to pay a publisher for Harper Lee's work because I don't know how much the publisher is going to give Harper Lee directly. I'd much rather pay Harper Lee herself. I haven't been coerced into doing so - I do so because I enjoyed her work and want to pay her for it. This is particularly true if I acquired her work conveniently at a time of my choosing using an outlet on the Internet that I know she herself set up.

Louis CK, Radiohead, and Andrew Sullivan are all making a living on this model. They are still selling recordings. They know that people will probably still acquire their work without paying them, but make enough on the good people who don't so to offset the cost, especially since in doing so they pay middlemen nothing, or nearly nothing.

People will pay a lot for both convenience and the satisfaction of knowing they compensated the original author him- or herself for an enjoyable experience. Paraphrasing Jobs, stealing a work is only free if your time is worth nothing. I don't need copyright to know that.

alexqgb• 13 years ago

It may be true that you're not a fan of copyright, but I'm not sure you know enough about copyright to have a properly informed opinion about an aspect like this.

For what it's worth, the transferability of copyrights was established in the 19th century to enable to creation and publication of encyclopedias. By allowing writers to transfer their copyrights to publishers, publishers could (a) aggregate a number of entries into a new type of work and (b) produce new editions of that work without having to submit to extortionate negotiating situations with writers who could use their control of one (possibly unchanged) part of the work to block development of the rest.

This principle underlies the genesis of the extensively collaborative forms of expression that defined culture in the 20th century, from recorded symphonies, to radio plays, televised broadcasts, and or course, the cinema. Indeed, it creates an entirely new class of authors (e.g. cinematographers and film editors) whose own work depends on massively collaborative forms of creation.

There are many, many reasons to be critical of the copyright system. But the basic transferability of copyrights isn't one of them.

philwelch2• 13 years ago

If an author has a right to his or her own work, how does the author not have the right to transfer the legal benefits thereof in exchange for consideration?

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

Even if you have read the original, the audiobook, narrated by Sissy Spacek, is well worth a listen.

I do hope this Mr. Pinkus gets his just desserts.

Harper Lee sues for copyright of To Kill a Mockingbird

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