Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday April 29 2020, @12:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the Who-remembers-Captain-Crunch? dept.

Spring Issue of 2600 Released - Important News :

[For those who may be unfamiliar: 2600: The Hacker Quarterly "is an American seasonal publication of technical information and articles [...] on a variety of subjects including hacking, telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer 'underground.'" --Ed.]

It gets worse. Our previous issue (the one still on stands) can't be sold to Barnes and Noble "curbside pickup" customers even though most everything else in their stores can be. Why? It's their "policy" that magazines can't be sold this way and that policy can't be changed despite the current circumstances. It makes no sense at all to us. Our issues are right there in the store yet they can't be sold to customers.

Rather than working out options where we might have a chance at survival, we're being told that we have to figure out what to do with all these issues or pay a penalty for not shipping them. We find ourselves in the middle of a Kafka novel where everything is stacked against the publisher because that's just how it is.

We've seen injustices before where distributors have gone out of business without paying us, sometimes simply changing their name and continuing to make millions while we don't get a dime. But this time it's different. This time what's happening affects all of us, and what we were hoping we'd see was a sense of community where we all supported one another and helped everyone get through this terrible crisis. That most certainly hasn't been the case in the publishing world.

We honestly don't know if we'll be able to publish another issue. We intend to try once we know if there's a plan or any sort of relief we can take advantage of. We haven't seen much encouragement from landlords, banks, and insurance companies who can't help and all insist on getting paid in full and on time. Meanwhile, those entities owing us checks say they can't pay us at all. Something has to give.

The story offers several alternative ways to purchase a copy including by subscription or buying the issue digitally (HTML, PDF, Kindle, and Nook).


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:16PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:16PM (#988228) Journal

    Reminds me of the Sesame Street song: One of these things is not like the other

    Download something from the pirate bay.

    One copyright owner will:

    • misuse the court system to discover your identity
    • believe that an IP address is a person
    • sue for everything you are worth, take their house, or in one memorable instance their entire college savings money
    • try to ban mere tools. Bittorrent, designed to distribute Linux distributions. Or sue diamond rio, the first mp3 player device . . . because!
    • work hard to ensure that copyrights are owned by corporations and no copyright interest is owned by actual "artists for hire" slave wages
    • buy legislation to make copyright life of the author + 90 years (corporations are people too!)
    • buy custom written legislation such as the DMCA (a travesty, with a toothless "penalty of perjury" clause)
    • corrupt the legislative process related to anything to do with copyright
    • claim that piracy is costing them 75 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!! (probably more than the entire global GDP)
    • file false and sometimes outright fradulent DMCA notices
    • insist that you must respect copyright -- with a straight face
    • and I could go on

    The other copyright owner will:

    • do nothing
    • maybe encourage you to subscribe

    Please do not even attempt to assign some sort of moral equivalence here.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4