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Hungarian Science Fiction Publisher Says: "on the net"=="public domain"

posted by martyb on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the going-to-need-much-more-popcorn dept.

mcgrew writes:

I ran across this article, and laughed at its ludicrousness. It seems that a publishing company is sweating bullets and a bunch of science fiction writers around the world are hopping mad.

Galaktika was once a respected Hungarian language science fiction magazine, closed in 1995, and later reopened. Right now it's Hungary's only printed SF magazine. The only trouble is, its publisher, Metropolis Media, took copyrighted fiction from the internet and had it translated to Hungarian and republished it, saying it was in the public domain because it had been on the internet!

They're presently in some deep trouble with professional writers and their agents. Did they really believe that, I wonder? I'll bet if it was movies they'd REALLY be in trouble!

The article is worth a read. It was written by by Cat Rambo (honest, that's her real name), an old sciene fiction writer who has won Hugo and Nebula awards, and is president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; the SFWA is a professional guild.

Original Submission

[Eds Comment: Deleted incorrect statement]

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 02 2016, @03:40PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 02 2016, @03:40PM (#409088) Journal

    They thought they would get away with it. Obscure publication, in a language that isn't really widely used, why not take the chance? But no, only the very ignorant, or the very stupid can possibly believe that everything on the WWW is open domain. This excuse was just thrown out there to muddy the waters. Everyone involved is asking themselves, "Are these guys really that stupid?"

    I think I detest this idiot as much as I detest current copyright law.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JNCF on Sunday October 02 2016, @05:25PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Sunday October 02 2016, @05:25PM (#409111) Journal

    I think I detest this idiot as much as I detest current copyright law.

    Agree. If the publisher screamed "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!" and released every issue of their magazine under CC0 I'd have a really hard time judging them for reprinting other folks' work. With the excuse given, I hope they're crushed to death by a pile of lawyers.