The Tramp Stamp Is A Limited Edition
A friend asked me a question and I don’t have the answer, so I thought I’d ask all of you.
She wants to know whether it’s okay to post the first chapter of her original novel (in progress) to her LiveJournal, using filters to restrict viewership.
Obviously she has every right to do this, as it is her own work and her LJ. Her question, if I understand it correctly, is about how potential publishers would view this.
It’s a fair question, because there is a sense in which posting something online is “publication” and publishers do ask if you’re submitting previously published material.
Whether she should worry about that or not is something about which I can only shrug and say, “Maybe?” Some publishers would care that something was previously posted on LJ. Others wouldn’t. It might bite you in the ass or it might never be a problem. Heck, a publisher might even find your work online and approach you, though I would put the likelyhood of that somewhere around the likelyhood of me accidentally shooting the ground in my front yard and releasing a bubblin’ crude.
Where I have absolutely no idea how to answer her question is in regard to filters, or friends-locking.
For those who don’t know, this is where you limit viewship of a blog post to pre-approved viewers. I believe you can do this by category (say, only other LJ users) or by individuals (these specific 12 people) If you’re not on the list of approved viewers, I don’t think you even see that the post in question exists. LJ users, can you confirm or deny this? I only use my LJ account to post on other people’s LJs, so I haven’t dug around in the guts too much.
Here’s the nub of it: are you “publishing” something when you post it to a filtered list?
If you post something on the internet under a filter, do you have an expectation of privacy? Has there been a test case about this of any kind?
If you’ve got some expectation of privacy, I don’t think it’s publishing anymore–it’s more like email.
I always tell my clients not to put anything on the net unless they’re prepared to share it with their customers, their worst enemies, and their moms. I don’t care if it’s friend-locked or behind a dinky little Javascript password. But that’s about keeping something confidential and not about what constitutes publication.
Does the fact that someone can open your mailbox and steal your mail or use a parabolic mic to listen in on your conversations mean that you have no expectation of privacy in your mail or your home?
I’m not sure that the fact that someone can steal stuff you’ve put behind a filter (and then post that stuff all over the net) means that you published that stuff, any more than you’d have published it if you mailed it to one friend and that friend photocopied it and posted it to telephone poles all over town.
Here’s another question–does it matter what size your viewership group is? If you post something under a filter to about 12 people, is that different from posting it to 100, or to allowing anyone with an LJ account access but blocking people who don’t have LJ accounts? My instinct is that 12 people or 100 people, that doesn’t matter. But letting in anyone with an LJ account, bearing in mind that such accounts are free and accessible to anyone… that might be different.
As long as I’m on this topic to begin with, I’m realizing that I don’t actually know what does and does not constitute publication. I get that a newspaper is published and my book is published and my blog is published. But what about a billboard? A Lost Dog notice on the grocery store bulletin board? A sign on my front lawn?
What if you get a tattoo on your forehead… or elsewhere? Would it matter where it was?
Also, when and how did we all decide that putting stuff online was publishing and not broadcasting? And, hey, if TV’s not going out over the airwaves anymore, is it really broadcasting?
There you go: a few simple little questions. Please, please, jump in with your thoughts.
Current Bedside Reading: F. Lee Bailey and Jean Rabe, When the Husband is the Suspect
Commentary: I get that some guys are magically charming and that some women just love them even when they’re being hideous jerks. Or because they’re being jerks. But, honestly, if you knew a guy who was talking about kicking his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach to cause a miscarriage, would your reaction be disappointment that he was getting serious with another girl? Some people… you can just see how their lives are gonna turn out.
My iPod Is Singing: “I am a flightless bird and there will be no more after me.”
Comments
jf (Feb 02, 2010)
When I’m talking to clients about data, once it’s out there, it’s out there. If I were to share with a closed group, it would be paper.
Gayleen (Feb 02, 2010)
(for those who don’t know jf, he is an IT professional who works as a consultant)
In practical terms, I completely agree. I tell my clients much the same thing. I can’t believe the things clients will consider putting online, behind a crappy little password.
I do know that it’s pretty easy, now, to scan a document and email or post the image, or even to use OCR. Print is, at least potentially, less private every day.
But it’s still far more private than something sent via email. Also, it’s difficult to accidentally scan a letter and email it around town, whereas it’s frighteningly easy for the recipient of an email to do that by hitting a wrong button or two.
Of course, none of this helps with the legal question: what is the status of something posted behind a friends lock or filter? You and I agree that it’s not all that private, really, but is it published in a legal sense?
Has this come up at all in any of your professional development, or with your own clients? It’s interesting to get an IT perspective on the question.
James Brown (Feb 02, 2010)
Published in a legal sense is a bit of an odd duck; perhaps even a red herring, to mix my metaphors entirely. First, legal where? Consult a local lawyer is the only way you’ll get an answer to this, and the answer is almost certainly “It depends” or “there’s no strong precedent” because IP law is a frakking rat’s nest.
From a more general stance, my understanding of ‘published’ is (roughly): to make available to the public. With, of course, the caveat that it is understood to be primarily written work – nobody talks about publishing a painting, or the latest model of a car.
So, in that regard, if the audience is restricted, it’s not published. Showing it privately to 12 people on LJ is no more an act of publishing than is showing it to 12 friends in your living room.
This is different that things like limited releases et al, because while those are limited in number, they are not limited by who is allowed to access them; a goat farmer in Peru is, in theory, as able to view the work as you or I. Publishing does not concern itself with the accessibility of the work – that’s distribution’s job.
No, the real edge cases, and this is where a locked LJ list might qualify, are semi-private or limited audience publications. For example, say an internally-circulated newsletter in a corporation or gov’t office. It goes through all the same steps as “real” publication, but it is not, in fact, intended for public consumtion. It is intended for these 12 (or 1200, or 12,000) people only, and typically disclaimed as such.
I think, however, that those sorts of edge cases are only edge cases as a result of typically sloppy language use. Simply because it comes from a printing house, and there’s an editorial and advertisments inside, that doesn’t mean it’s a publication. The root of the word is still ‘public’.
And so, to come full circle back to my original rather stretched metaphor: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it still might just be a document.
James
Gayleen (Feb 02, 2010)
Very nice. Thank you, sir.
James Brown (Feb 02, 2010)
I’ll also note, on the topic of ‘what do you call it?’ that Youtube’s slogan is Broadcst yourself, not Publish yourself…
James
Gayleen (Feb 02, 2010)
I suspect that’s because we’re used to thinking of audio and video as broadcast media. Hey, guy who teaches broadcasting to university students: can you contribute anything to this confusion?
jf (Feb 02, 2010)
Well at crapulife, they are currently putting up access to check what your investments (or insurance) is doing, but that is single access (Ideally for the client and no one else(or anyone who has the password and user name)). That being said, I don’t think that is publishing. Just to add to the confusion of above, there are restrictions as to where the information can be manipulated (The adviser and client have to both be in an area that the adviser is licensed in).
There are also a bunch of FOIP and PIPEDA laws around where the information is actually stored.
Back to the real topic, I don’t really know, but suspect that releasing it to any number of people,limited or not, could be termed self publishing. Having only one friend who has self published and from what he told me, he paid the publisher to edit and print the books, then flogged them around to Universities and his students, limited release, but targeted to a specific group of people. My concern with releasing widely may taint a future relationship with a publisher, and I think that may be different publisher by publisher, I don’t know how much of a selling point it would be to say my 12 friends liked it… but it is good to get the feed back.
oi, that’s a lot to say it depends….
jf (Feb 02, 2010)
Another point I am going to check with a lawyer, I just finished a project to pod cast recorded services…I will have to see if I have any worries there.
Gayleen (Feb 02, 2010)
” don’t know how much of a selling point it would be to say my 12 friends liked it… but it is good to get the feed back.”
And that’s what my friend has in mind. She doesn’t think of what she’s doing as publishing. She’s looking for a convenient way to share with some friends and get feedback for future drafts, and she has an LJ account, she so figures that’ll be simple.
She’s just concerned about how publishers view things… which, as I told her, likely varies somewhat from publisher to publisher. But, if a publisher asks her “has this material been previously published?”… she won’t know what to say, and I wouldn’t know either. Though I suppose saying “no” and then deleting your post(s) is one possible solution…
jf (Feb 02, 2010)
I’d just mark it as private to just the 12 people, then when asked say I showed a sample of it to a few friends (colleagues) first for feedback, the method at that point is not nec. to go into, as putting it on a lj account may slant the uneducated or uninformed publisher.
James Brown (Feb 03, 2010)
To the immediately practical; she could add a disclaimer to her ‘for feedback’ circulation. Something all official sounding like “This is not a published work. This document is intended for review purposes only.”
Then, if anyone asks if she’s previously published it, she just says “No.” No waffling, no caveats, just “No.”
James
Gayleen (Feb 03, 2010)
I like it.
Gayleen (Feb 03, 2010)
I think, between the disclaimer and the “I showed it to some friends for feedback” without saying how it was shown, that should cover it.
DPCS (Feb 03, 2010)
I think that James has covered it admirably. For my part, I think that publication can be defined as making a document available to the public. I think that placing a document on a web directory that is locked, either by password or permission cannot be called publishing.
If it were, then any documents placed on webservers for the use of, oh, say, Apple so that various engineers could share notes on a project would have to be considered published. To the contrary, if you accessed them and shared them that would be corporate espionage.
James’ dsiclaimer would, I’m sure clear it up in all ways. I doubt, however that it would be needed at all.
Also, obligatory dick joke.
jf (Feb 03, 2010)
I still haven’t seen anything about tramp stamps either. boo!
But I agree with James. No waffling.
James Brown (Feb 04, 2010)
“I think, between the disclaimer and the “I showed it to some friends for feedback” without saying how it was shown, that should cover it.”
Now I think we’re veering away from advice and into opinion-land, but I’m crazy that way. Also, it’s the internet, and somebody’s already made a dick joke, so what do I have left?.
I wouldn’t offer the comment. In fact, I would never bring it up at all, and if the publishing house brings it up, I’d give a straight unambiguous “No.” Because if you’re asked about publishing, and say “I showed it to some friends”, you’re introducing ambiguity, and an interview is never ever ever (not ever) the time to introduce ambiguity. Give who ever is reviewing the work and asking questions no oportunities to dismiss the work that aren’t due directly to flaws in the work. It’s both professional, and limits other people’s ability to be jerks.
James
James Brown (Feb 04, 2010)
And just for jf, tramp stamps.
As I understand it, most tramp stamps are placed on the body in a place that is arguably publicly accessable. However, tattoo work in general is widely accepted as art, even when it is a text based work. Also, even when it is in poor taste, or executed less than professionally.
So, not published. Released, perhaps. Or, more appropriately “On Display”. For especially classy tramp stamps, it could be “On Display at a private gallery”.
James
Gayleen (Feb 04, 2010)
It scares me a little, James, how well you seem to understand me.
DPCS (Feb 04, 2010)
That’s my new euphemism. If you need me, I’ll be “performing some renovations on my private gallery.”
jf (Feb 04, 2010)
Thank you James, as well as the linking of tramp stamp, as I was thinking of the tattoo on the tail bone, but your definition and link ties it all together nicely.
as well a valid point on ambiguity.
James (Feb 07, 2010)
I will laugh when I start seeing legal disclaimers or copyright notices on tramp stamps.
Gayleen (Feb 07, 2010)
I will be too busy telling people to pull up their pants.
Schmutzie (Feb 07, 2010)
I just wanted to let you know that this weblog has been nominated in the Writing & Literature category of the 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards – http://www.canadianweblogawards.com
Congratulations!
Gayleen (Feb 07, 2010)
Wow–that’s great news! Thank you.