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Unpublished J. D. Salinger Stories Leaked On Bittorrent Site
192_kbps writes "Catcher in the Rye author J. D. Salinger wrote the short story The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls and left depository copies with a few academic libraries with the understanding that the work would not see mass distribution until the mid-21st century. The only authorized place to read the story is in a special reading room at Princeton where electronics are not allowed and a librarian continuously babysits the reader. A PDF of the story, as well as two other unpublished stories, appeared on private bittorrent site what.cd where a huge bounty had been placed for the work. Incredibly, the uploader (or someone connected to the uploader) bought an unauthorized copy on eBay for a pittance. The file, Three Stories, is making the bittorrent rounds but can also be read on mediafire."
This is a great example of where copyright helps to encourage authors to write more. The fact that this copy has been leaked, and pirated massively means that Salinger has no incentive to write any more! We need to punish the perpetrators thoroughly.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
https://kickass.to/three-stories-j-d-salinger-pdf-t8257205.html
https://torcache.net/torrent/ED8F9DE4B9151B3B0E5B998CAF7A124E9E7B0E17.torrent?title=%5Bkickass.to%5Dthree.stories.j.d.salinger.pdf
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:ED8F9DE4B9151B3B0E5B998CAF7A124E9E7B0E17&dn=three+stories+j+d+salinger+pdf&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337
Slashdot fucks up magnet links, but the hash is right there: ED8F9DE4B9151B3B0E5B998CAF7A124E9E7B0E17
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
...we wouldn't want to respect the wishes of an author so widely admired. He put words on paper, so fuck him. They stopped belonging to him when they saw the light of day.
I love this socialist half-paradise, where Wall Street profits are privatized, gigantic losses from gambling with people's deposits are publicly insured, and intellectual works are treated like a turkey thrown into a pit filled with hyenas.
Writing your story posthumously is the best way to keep it secret.
which is totally what she said
.....oooooosh.
As a foreigner, I'd never heard of Salinger or Catcher in the Rye. When I first made it to the US, my friend gave me the book: "You HAVE to read that". I was underwhelmed and to this day still do not understand what all the fuss is about. A story about a whiney teenager with too much money for his own good ? This describe America pretty well to me !!!
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Funny that I don't see anyone talk about the stories themselves, just the news surrounding their acquisition... Is there some radical content in these stories, something of super-human insight or intelligence, that was supposed to be locked away for a good reason?
Incredibly, the uploader (or someone connected to the uploader) bought an unauthorized copy on eBay for a pittance
One presumes then that although this stuff is now kept under lock and key, it wasn't always so carefully protected?
I'm all over these torrents. What are they going to do, sue me? Let me see - me and about 3000 other seeders, and a few hundred leeches. I don't own anything worth taking, and my working life is nearing an end - what do you think they can gain by suing me?
Funny thing - all the working magnets seem to be DHT and PeX. Interesting that. I wonder how many are using anonymizing programs on their torrent clients? Ha! Glancing through the list of peers, a fair number are coming through proxies that are easily recognizable as proxies.
I suspect that the reason we haven't heard of any high-profile suites over torrenting, is that the gestapos *IAA organizations can't reliably identify "infringers" any longer.
Whatever - I want to read the stories, and see what I think of them.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Slightly overweight visitor: "Ok, Glass..."
Heavily-Armed Librarian Guardian: "What did you say?"
Slightly overweight visitor: "Uh, I said... looking classy... Looking classy, Mr. Salinger!"
Heavily-Armed Librarian Guardian: "Shh."
[ later that day ]
Heavily-Armed Librarian Guardian: "I wonder why that guy was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask."
This is a great example of where copyright helps to encourage authors to write more. The fact that this copy has been leaked, and pirated massively means that Salinger has no incentive to write any more! We need to punish the perpetrators thoroughly.
It is a disincentive to trust your unpublished manuscripts, papers and memoirs to Princeton --- it is easier to speak candidly if no one living will have to bear the consequences.
Nobody understands copyright law.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'll agree it might not deserve its place of regard near the apex of American literature but it certainly isn't crap. Maybe it no longer should be one of the five or six books we determinedly cram down every high schoolers throat anymore but someone seriously interested in American literature still needs to pay it a visit for certain.
It was a work of avaunt guard art in its day. There really was little in the way of "modern" coming of age works at the time, and nobody had done a novel length narrative in stream of conscience. The fact he did both and created a book that most people at least like well enough to finish even if they find they can't identify suggests its actually a pretty good book.
Some of its artistic greatness comes from the fact that it was unique. There have been lots of imitators who have created lots of crap since, but the original deserves a little reverence. If in visual arts I took a canvas painted half orange and half yellow and then drew a read smear down the center you'd rightly call it crap; but when Mark Rothko did expressed something and said something nobody had ever done before. What exactly I am not sure but when you see "Orange, Red, Yellow" you do react to it. The fact that someone was willing to put it out there and assert, this can be art, makes it special in a way no derivative work ever can be; its similar with Catcher.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Didn't stop Tupac.
That is why Nobody is highly regarded as an expert witness in copyright cases.
I'm thinking of changing my name to Nobody. Aside from causing general confusion I could easily make a living suing people for defamation. "Nobody would be that stupid" - now you owe me $$$ for damaging my reputation!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
how else to get a private fucking reading room for your book?
Write it on the inside of a bathroom stall door?
Have gnu, will travel.
Maybe Princeton shouldn't be in the business of playing gatekeeper to a dead man's paranoiac death wishes about publication. .
what.cd admins took down the file out of respect to the author as well. Princeton's not the only gatekeeper in this story.
Yes.
Crap.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
So, could this be legit? Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin says yes.
"I've never read "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls": It's part of a collection of Salinger material at the Princeton University library and available only to scholars who are supervised as they read," he said in the online edition of the paper. "I have read the other two stories, however, at the University of Texas' Ransom Center, and the versions of them in 'Three Stories' are the real deal."
Another affirmation comes from Salinger scholar Kenneth Slawenski, author of "J.D. Salinger: A Life," who talked with BuzzFeed.
"While I do quibble with the ethics (or lack of ethics) in posting the Salinger stories, they look to be true transcripts of the originals and match my own copies," Slawenski told BuzzFeed in an e-mail.
Princeton had it's own theories on how the stories could have made it to the public.
"The story is probably an unauthorized version transcribed longhand in our reading room," said Martin Mbugua, a Princeton spokesman. "It's also possible that it came from photocopies of the typescript probably made before the mid-1980s when we decided that we would no longer allow photo-duplication for any work by Salinger."