If the object of writing is to deliver to readers a text that is engaging & enlightens, or entertains them in some way or other, then the idea of maintaining a fixed form of a book needs to be reexamined. Writers will probably always want to keep control of their work, but who is to say that the particular collaboration between a writer and her editor results in the best possible book? Or rather, perhaps the “final” book ends up catering well to one segment of readers, but — due to language, length, focus, or whatever – another vast swath of readers is blocked from enjoying the book.
We’ve always had abridged versions and “selected-essays-from” and audio versions and made-for-TV adaptations. But in a more open rights schema (say, Creative Commons licensing), there is something thrilling about the idea that dedicated readers – the most engaged of all stakeholders, beyond the original writer & editor – might legitimately improve texts for certain audiences. (This is exactly what happened with LibriVox – passionate readers transforming texts they love so that others can enjoy them).
I know I have read texts where I thought: the information in that book was great; pity it was so dry, or so poorly-written. As books go digital, the ability to work on them and adapt them for different needs becomes a simple matter of opening up a text editor, importing a file (in theory) and getting to work. In the academic market, and certain sectors of serious non-fiction, something like this could be extremely valuable to readers, and to writers as well (increased markets).
For such creative engagement to happen, it will require writers and publishers to look differently on their works than they might have done to date – to view their “finished” books as something more open-ended, and available. The tools are here already; what remains to be seen is whether our culture of authorship has room for such a radical change in perspective.
We’re seeing hints that in some quarters, we may be ready. Cory Doctorow has legions of fans who translate his works and make audio versions of his books. But for some reason this struck me as a bigger jump. Kevin Kelly reports as follows:
The other day I got a note from a Dutch guy who is a fan of my book OUT OF CONTROL. He found my ideas great but my presentation “frustrating.” But unlike my other “frustrated” readers, Andreas Lloyd decided to do something about it: he remixed my book!
I think the result is quite amazing. Remixing is perhaps too strong a word because he mostly simply dropped entire chapters, with a little re-arranging here and there. It is a very sharp but intelligent edit. But the effect is striking. [more...]
Writes Andreas Lloyd about his work on Kelly’s book:
Kevin Kelly’s book Out of Control is a fascinating book full of fascinating ideas reaching across the board from artificial intelligence, evolution, biology, ecology, robotics and more to explore complexity, cybernetics and self-organising systems in an accessible and engaging way.
But in reading Out of Control, I found it suffering from a number of frustrating flaws: Not only is it way too long-winded, it is also almost completely void of meta-text to help the reader understand what Kelly is trying to do with his book (having read the book, I’m still wondering)…
I would have preferred a much shorter book, more narrowly focused on the idea of self-organising systems. The whole text of the original book is easily available online at Kelly’s own website, so I thought: Why not remix the online text to make such a book? [more...]
Why not, indeed?
You can get a copy of Kelly’s original book here (free on the web, or to purchase from Amazon).
And a copy of Lloyd’s remixed version here (free on the web, free pdf).
I should add, this is one of the things at the back of our minds as we build Book Oven. We hope that good digital publishing platforms mean that writers and readers will start to get the sense that a book might live on, and grow after the writer or publisher press “publish” … that engagement, annotations, commentary, and generally the life around a book might become as culturally important in our eyes as the original itself.
4 Comments
Why not?
Because it’s the author’s damned book, not yours. It’s the author’s words, not anybody else’s.
“Remixing” is a mania among open-source fanatics that has no place whatsoever in literature. And your beloved Creative Commons licence would not permit an adaptation such as this pretty much anywhere other than the United States, since moral rights prevents the desecration of a work’s artistic integrity. Thank God.
The author’s words, yes, plus the editor’s, likely several reviewers’, the copy-editor’s, and the proofreader’s words as well. And, post-finished book, an author’s words (if he’s lucky) get adapted in all sorts of ways all the time. They get explained in lectures by university professors, quoted in high-school papers, interpreted in critical examinations, discussed by friends over drinks, and turned into movies etc.
And an author is rarely a lone genius producing a work. In fact, here’s what Kelly himself has to say at the end of his book:
“Hardly an idea in this volume is mine alone. In addition to the books and papers annotated in my bibliography, the concepts I present here have largely been condensed, paraphrased, or quoted from conversations, correspondence and lengthy interviews with the following people. Each, without exception, was extremely generous with his time and patient with my endless questions. They are, of course, not responsible for my idiosyncratic interpretation of their ideas. Some of the interviewees offered valuable corrections and comments to the work in progress. In addition, those indicated by asterisk [ed. that was 10 people] were kind enough to review portions of the final manuscript. Thank you.”
In the Kelly case, the one that seems most interesting to me, we’re talking about a non-fiction work (different than fiction, mostly for the potential utility of remixing), and the objective was to make valuable ideas more accessible.
In any case, I’m not suggesting writers be forced to give up their moral rights (though I suppose I might); rather, that in some cases there could be great value to everyone (writer and readers) by opening up rights in a wider way.
I agree that there is a mania for remixing that I think is interesting in niche cases only; so I was intrigued to see this example of a remix that appears to add significant value to a work, to a writer, and to the public sphere in general.
Is it just me, or do many readers tend to see texts as more sacred than the very authors of those said texts? This could just be my bias as someone in academia, but many authors would love it if someone were to actually take the time to respond to their work and engage with it at this level. Most things we write just sort of disappear into the void, and unless you have wonderful sales figures, it can be hard to believe than anyone other than you, your editor, and maybe some friends and family have even read your work. A rewriting/-mixing of a work, on the other hand, shows an amazing, and ultimately rewarding, level of engagement. And if an author’s put his or her work up under a CC license, it hardly seems to me that he or she would somehow feel that moral rights had been infringed upon (barring extreme cases).
Authors’ words do not get rewritten “by university professors.” Their usage, and all the others you mentioned, are original critical interpretations, not a violation of the author’s voice.
Dude, you cannot possibly be advocating that any author give up the right to control their own words. You haven’t thought this through, it appears. But if you really do believe that, then have the guts to make an explicit, high-profile, detailed statement to that effect so we’ll know where you stand (among authors’ enemies).