Julian Assange's Unauthorized Autobiography

macwhizkid writes "After signing a major book deal for his autobiography, Julian Assange backed out (allegedly worrying about self-incrimination) but failed to return his £500,000 advance payment. The publisher is understandably unhappy with this outcome, and intends to publish the 'world's first unauthorized autobiography' from an early draft Assange submitted. The book will be in stores tomorrow, but I'm still hoping it'll be published early on WikiLeaks..."

Comments

Excerpt from Chapter 17

[elrous0]

I knew that strange woman at my door wanting sex must be into me because I'm totally hot, not because it was any kind of setup. You see, the Julinator is really smart that way. And the Julinator trusts his intuition. She was so into me that she stole my laptop later that night as a souvenir of an awesome night when I rocked her world. That's just the kind of impression the Julinator makes. Besides those CIA types are all guys, right? The Julinator learned that from those Jack Ryan movies.

Hey, why is my lawyer calling at this hour?

Re:Excerpt from Chapter 17

[blair1q]

Man. I'm not sure why the spooks haven't just capped Assange yet, but I'm glad they haven't. This dude is more entertaining than Mike Tyson on crack.

Drupal

[cornface]

Packt Publishing presents: Julian Assange's Drupal Made Easy

This seems funny

[dyingtolive]

If someone backs out on a contract with you, you don't just take what you have and say "oh well, we'll do with what we have." You hit them with breach of contract and get your money back. I wonder if he and the publisher had this planned from the get-go to put plausible deniability on the book.

Re:This seems funny

[jellomizer]

It isn't funny at all, just smart business.
If they fight to get all their money back, they will spend money and chances they will not get it back or only part of it and a bunch of legal battles.
So because he is in breach of contract, all bets are off so they will publish the book and make millions of pounds off of it.
So they will get their money back and a profit.

Re:This seems funny

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone backs out on a contract with you, you don't just take what you have and say "oh well, we'll do with what we have." You hit them with breach of contract and get your money back.

You're aware that you're talking about Julian Assange, right? Spend the next ten minutes trying to work out a scenario wherein someone sics lawyers on him, finds him (that is, gets through the layers of paranoia embedded deep within him to hide his location and activities), hauls his ass back to whatever jurisdiction is needed for legal proceedings, and ultimately manages to get five hundred thousand quid out of him sometime EARLIER than the next twenty-five years (money which, inevitably, has already been spent).

I'd say this is probably the best idea they have: Threaten to release the draft. If Assange comes out of hiding to protest, nail him and get money back. If he refuses and stays hidden, carry out said threat (which I suppose at that point would be a "promise", more than a "threat"), leading to a marketing campaign as an unofficial biography of the man who wanted to reveal everyone's secrets but wouldn't share any of his own. It's brilliant, really.

(I only added the "spend the next ten minutes" caveat in there to hopefully stave off you falling into an endless loop and overheating your brain looking for an answer that will simply never decide to exist. Think of it as a short-term memory watchdog circuit for your logic senses.)

Re:This seems funny

[Raenex]

You're aware that you're talking about Julian Assange, right? Spend the next ten minutes trying to work out a scenario wherein someone sics lawyers on him, finds him (that is, gets through the layers of paranoia embedded deep within him to hide his location and activities), hauls his ass back to whatever jurisdiction is needed for legal proceedings,

You're not informed, because his current location is known and he is pending extradition to Sweden at the very moment:

"Assange must wear an electronic tag, report to police every day and observe a curfew. He also must stay at a registered address - a 10-bedroom mansion in eastern England owned by Vaughan Smith, a WikiLeaks supporter and founder of London's Frontline Club for journalists."

and ultimately manages to get five hundred thousand quid out of him sometime EARLIER than the next twenty-five years (money which, inevitably, has already been spent).

This is the most difficult part. However, supposedly the money is in escrow to pay for his lawyers, so it really depends on who has rights to it first. Common sense says the people who gave it to him under contract should get it first, but the law isn't always common sense.

Anyways, I agree that publishing was the smart thing to do, despite all of the above. I was just correcting the misconception that Assange is some master of concealment that could disappear like a ghost.

I thought that too, except ....

[King_TJ]

Maybe the publisher feels they stand to profit more by publishing the now controversial book, based on what they've already got?

If they sued over breach of contract, sure - they could try to get their money back, but as we all know, court judgments are FAR from a guarantee of getting repaid. With a character like Assange, perhaps they think it's a FAR better bet to take a chance on making money from his rough draft they possess than by counting on the court system to make him cough up the money?

Re:I thought that too, except ....

[Rhodri Mawr]

The bbc article on it gives far more detail:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15009028

...particularly the comment: "After sitting with a ghost writer for more than 50 hours of taped interviews, he decided he wanted to cancel the contract. "

Leaks

[Anonymous Coward]

I shall download the book from pirate bay. After all, everyone must have access to information.

Well, let's just make shiat up.

[mcmonkey]

The publisher is understandably unhappy with this outcome, and intends to publish the 'world's first unauthorized autobiography' from an early draft Assange submitted.

I don't believe a publisher would not be aware of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, so the claim of being the "first unauthorized autobiography" is a lie.

Re:Well, isn't that appropriate?

[spazdor]

Me too. The WikiLeaks mission is an important and productive one and I applaud and support them.
But Julian himself is just so goddamned hard to like.

nomitave determinism, more frequent than you think

[Thud457]

Oh, come on, the guy's got Ass right there in his name, how much more warning do you want? Does he have to be named Julian as well for you to take proper caution?

Re:It's about the goal, not about a face

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the head's-up on the budget - I had no idea we wasted so much money on NASA.

Don't take Assange's version of events on trust

[Goonie]

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Wikileaks, I would take anything said in Assange's "autobiography", unauthorized or not, with several spoonfuls of salt. An article by Robert Manne struggles with some of the computing-related stuff, but fills in some useful background.

As he puts it:

There is, however, a problem. Journalists as senior as David Leigh of the Guardian or John F. Burns of the New York Times in general accept on trust many of Assange’s stories about himself. They do not understand that, like many natural writers, he has fashioned his life into a fable.