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Mark Twain To Reveal All After 100 Year Wait
Hugh Pickens writes "The Independent reports that one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published one hundred years after his death. Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century, but in November, the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's three-volume autobiography. Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted his autobiography kept under wraps for so long, with some believing it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image. 'He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines,' says Shelden. 'He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.' Interestingly enough, Twain had a cunning plan to beat the early 20th century copyright law with its short copyright terms. Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."
Mark Twain had to have been one of the coolest guys who ever lived.
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Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."
Exactly why the limits SHOULD be less then they are now. Back then, the length of the copyright period was actually promoting the publishing of new material.
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patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel
Especially when discussing the Patriot Act. Just saying.
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"Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."
If he was actually writing that additional content afterwards, he invented Release Early, Release Often.
If the content actually existed and it was a cynical ploy to sell more products, he invented the model Microsoft uses.
In either case, this puts his business acumen over half a century ahead of anyone else. That's genius.
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Whatever the substantive motives for the delay in publication are - that's probably also a nice publicity stunt; viral marketing is...old again?
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In the olden days, authors games the law; they may not like the law, but still obeys the letters of the law. Today publishers BUY the law; they write them and their politicians force them upon the populace.
There are plenty of good husbands and good fathers in this world. There are very few writers of his calibre however. Saying that he was only a great man on the surface because he wasn't a great family man is like saying Alan Turing wasn't all that great because he was rubbish at water polo*.
For all I know Alan Turing was great at water polo, my point is that it is irrelevant.
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I imagine if that were the case, massive numbers of readers would boycott Davinci Code. Although, is that really any different from how series like Babylon 5, Lost, and Stargate SG1 operate? You don't get the whole story at once... it's stretched out over 5-8 years.
Also: I think you misinterpreted Twain's point. He didn't "hold back" anything in his stories. He was simply planning to add more material, as a bonus. Since he died, that never happened.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"I like that extension of copyright life to the author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any reasonable author, because it would take care of his children."
Sorry Mr. Twain but I don't think your daughters should be able to live in luxury, without working, while they collect money off your books for another 50 years. If you want to pass your existing money to them, that's fine, but the copyright should end the moment you die. Let your daughters go-out and work for themselves if they want to continue collecting money.
Copyright is intended to benefit the original laborer, not to set up an eternal money-making machine for people who did not do the original labor.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That would actually work well, since it would not protect the version as released, only the additions to the work. People can still freely use the old version as-is, or even as a basis for their own derivative works.
If you want to continue profiting from your intellectual property, release a new version every few years that's better than the one you released before. People can then choose between the older version (which is free of copyright encumbrance) or the newer version (which you've put work into to make it more desirable than the old version). Just make sure you do it better than anyone else, because the instant copyright runs out anyone can use it as the basis for new art.
This is the way it should be. If you want to keep getting paid for something you wrote 50 years ago, then you should keep working on it and improving it. Your older versions (for what is not currently, and should be, a reasonable definition of "older") should be available for everyone after you've had a reasonable amount of time to profit from it. "Years" is reasonable. "Generations" is not.
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There are plenty of good husbands and good fathers in this world. There are very few writers of his calibre however. Saying that he was only a great man on the surface because he wasn't a great family man is like saying Alan Turing wasn't all that great because he was rubbish at water polo*.
Not really. I know very few people that measure a man's greatness based on his water polo skills. But if you're not a good husband and father to the people you promised to be a good husband and father to, then you have lost a significant amount of respect from me.
If we said he was a "great writer," that's fine. But calling him a great man because of his writing is not merited, unless as a society, we actually want to ignore "humanity" faults in a person because of his literary work. Personally, I'd much rather have a great guy (great "man") as my neighbor than a great writer.
With all that said, I don't know much about him as a person, so I don't know if the original claim is true or not :)
Plenty of kids and neighborhoods are all the worse because of negligent/never_there fathers. No one grew up harmed because someone wasn't a good water polo player.
A reason that copyright extends past death is to discourage murder to get access to copyrighted material.
I'm sure that's the spin policymakers put on it when they deformed copyright law. A better approach to discouraging murder would be to have set copyright terms...which coincidentally, was what we used to have. It used to be you could tell if a work was in copyright or not by looking at the copyright notice, subtracting it from the current year, and seeing if the result was greater than the copyright term. If you want the equivalent of "life plus fifty years" to benefit the kids, make copyright equal to the median life span + 50 years, and make that the set term. If you want more innovation, reduce that back to something reasonable, like 20 years.
Making copyright life+50 to avoid a mass of murdered authors is bullshit...that problem goes away as soon as you decouple copyright from an author's demise, as was its original implementation (in the US at least...in the UK, the earliest forms of proto-copyright went on forever, and some works still fall in the category).
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How many lives has he touched with his brilliant writing? His writings have had an unmeasurable positive impact on the world and to ignore that seems almost criminal to me. "Just a great writer" does not really do justice to how good he was. His works aren't just nice stories, they are full of powerful and relevant social commentary as well, which was not lost on his readers at the time.
I'm not attempting to downplay the harm caused by being a negligent father but everyone has flaws. If we ignore the achievements of men because of their supposed shortfallings in other areas, then nobody is a great man, and what exactly does that say about society? And for what it is worth, he publicly stated on at least one occation that he supported extended copyright terms because it would allow his work to financially support his family after his death. Perhaps he wasn't a great father/husband, but it certainly doesn't sound like he created enough harm to outway his literary and intellectual accomplishments.
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Ultimately, it's a question of priority. People have to sacrifice their family life and hobbies to concentrate on their great work, which is why so many writers have had terrible lives. It's better that Twain gave us something that will last us through the ages (his words) than to have been another generic family man.
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A reason that copyright extends past death is to discourage murder to get access to copyrighted material.
Here's the choice:
1) Expiration at death -> Murder to put something into the public domain where EVERYBODY has access to it.
2) Expiration after death -> Murder by a family member to get control of the income from the copyright today
Seems to me that copyright extending past death is much more of an incentive for murder than it is against it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Not really. He likely wanted anyone he was talking ABOUT to be dead as well, to not be able to deny or discount his story. Basically, it would seem as if he is simply letting history speak for himself, and before you read this, a several generations have already been exposed to his more public side (his work) before they can judge his opinions and perspectives as a private individual. Most people have opinions that they don't necessarily share to everyone in public, be they about race, religion, politics, etc., particularly if they are not in the majority in these views.
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If we ignore the achievements of men because of their supposed shortfallings in other areas, then nobody is a great man, and what exactly does that say about society?
The truth?
"Just a great writer" does not really do justice to how good he was.
Yes it does. That is exactly what it means, he was a great writer. If he was a bad husband and father then that is what it is also.
And for what it is worth, he publicly stated on at least one occation that he supported extended copyright terms because it would allow his work to financially support his family after his death.
So he wants to try to play games with copyright law and you're ok with that too? Next you're going to tell me he created the modern text book scheme with new editions so often that students cannot reuse old text books...
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