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Post by ronmiller on Feb 27, 2020 17:34:21 GMT
By an odd coincidence, someone posted a cover on CoverCritics.com recently that played off the original poster for Friday the 13th. The author considered it a parody---and parodies, at least according to how the US Copyright Office defines the word, are protected by copyright---but it clearly was not. In fact, only a few details were changed. He was very much taken to task by several members of CoverCritics for not having made his cover either sufficiently different or obviously parody. One of my own comments was "This comes a lot closer to an homage…which might be a nice tip of the hat to Friday the 13th, but there is no copyright protection for homages. In any copyright question I think it is always safest to err on the side of caution. "By the way, don't forget that that "litigious client" might someday be you. I was once on the Godly side of a copyright infringement suit and I can guarantee that you don't ever want to find yourself on the wrong end of one. If anyone is deliberately playing off an already existing cover, than they should do so with extreme caution. I usually do err on the side of caution, to the point I usually do searches on a prospective title [even though titles aren't copyrightable] in order to find as much uniqueness as possible. The point being getting a title as stands out as opposed to being lost in a pile of similar schtuff. As for someone infringing one of my copyrights, why would they? I'm not a great writer, no fanbase to speak of, and if my work were infringed it wouldn't be extremely hard to prove, which all added together means no real profit motivation. Apart from laziness, it's the lure of 'easy money' that usually leads to infringement.
I also agree that deliberately playing off an existing cover would not be a good idea, however inadvertently doing so is far easier than many would think simply due to the massive number of similar covers in existence.
You are right about the massive number of similar covers...but I think that you find that most prevalent in the world of self-publishing, where authors tend to depend upon stock imagery or "cover designers" who do little more than pull a stock image out of a catalog and stick a title onto it.  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2020 17:36:46 GMT
Well, since the Ingram message mentioned covers all by themselves, the hypothetical title could be very different and all it would take would be a somewhat similar cover to run afoul of the loosely worded verbiage.
I'm not a JAG lawyer, nor have I played the role of one, but I have interacted with a few. All it takes is a litigious client pushing a spurious case and even the most innocent can suffer.
Ingram needs to tighten up its verbiage.
By an odd coincidence, someone posted a cover on CoverCritics.com recently that played off the original poster for Friday the 13th. The author considered it a parody---and parodies, at least according to how the US Copyright Office defines the word, are protected by copyright---but it clearly was not. In fact, only a few details were changed. He was very much taken to task by several members of CoverCritics for not having made his cover either sufficiently different or obviously parody. One of my own comments was "This comes a lot closer to an homage…which might be a nice tip of the hat to Friday the 13th, but there is no copyright protection for homages. In any copyright question I think it is always safest to err on the side of caution. "By the way, don't forget that that "litigious client" might someday be you. I was once on the Godly side of a copyright infringement suit and I can guarantee that you don't ever want to find yourself on the wrong end of one. If anyone is deliberately playing off an already existing cover, than they should do so with extreme caution. That's interesting, Ron. Who is to decide what constitutes similarity? How? Gut feeling? Impression? So many covers are similar. Tricky thing. It might start a precedent and really impede creativity. I don't know. |
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Post by ronmiller on Feb 27, 2020 19:32:43 GMT
By an odd coincidence, someone posted a cover on CoverCritics.com recently that played off the original poster for Friday the 13th. The author considered it a parody---and parodies, at least according to how the US Copyright Office defines the word, are protected by copyright---but it clearly was not. In fact, only a few details were changed. He was very much taken to task by several members of CoverCritics for not having made his cover either sufficiently different or obviously parody. One of my own comments was "This comes a lot closer to an homage…which might be a nice tip of the hat to Friday the 13th, but there is no copyright protection for homages. In any copyright question I think it is always safest to err on the side of caution. "By the way, don't forget that that "litigious client" might someday be you. I was once on the Godly side of a copyright infringement suit and I can guarantee that you don't ever want to find yourself on the wrong end of one. If anyone is deliberately playing off an already existing cover, than they should do so with extreme caution. That's interesting, Ron. Who is to decide what constitutes similarity? How? Gut feeling? Impression? So many covers are similar. Tricky thing. It might start a precedent and really impede creativity. I don't know. Yes, "similar" is pretty ambiguous and probably too broad. A lot of covers can have a kind of generic similarity, but I think the question really is about whether or not two books share so many design elements that they might be confused with one another (one good test might be to switch the titles and see if it makes any difference). I should think that in any dispute the earlier book ought to get preference. But "similar" would be almost an understatement regarding the string of covers I included in my last post! When exactly the same artwork is used on 6 different books, I think that one might point a finger and say that they are similar! The only significant difference between any of them is the title of the book. I am not too sure how avoiding making a book cover too similar to another would impede creativity. I think it would encourage it, if anything. |
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Post by ronmiller on Feb 27, 2020 19:55:32 GMT
I think that this site is a really good example of why a better word than "similar" needs to be found: www.bustle.com/articles/170732-57-book-covers-that-look-incredibly-similarYes, there is a broad, generic similarity between the books in each set...but by the same token they are also distinctly different. All of the individual elements are unique. There would certainly be no real danger of confusing one book for another, as would be the case in the seven fantasy novels I posted earlier. So I think that Maggie has hit upon something: the need for a better, more specific, more focused word than "similar." |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2020 22:46:06 GMT
That's interesting, Ron. Who is to decide what constitutes similarity? How? Gut feeling? Impression? So many covers are similar. Tricky thing. It might start a precedent and really impede creativity. I don't know. Yes, "similar" is pretty ambiguous and probably too broad. A lot of covers can have a kind of generic similarity, but I think the question really is about whether or not two books share so many design elements that they might be confused with one another (one good test might be to switch the titles and see if it makes any difference). I should think that in any dispute the earlier book ought to get preference. But "similar" would be almost an understatement regarding the string of covers I included in my last post! When exactly the same artwork is used on 6 different books, I think that one might point a finger and say that they are similar! The only significant difference between any of them is the title of the book. I am not too sure how avoiding making a book cover too similar to another would impede creativity. I think it would encourage it, if anything. So what are they to do with very different covers that have the same image? So many lulu covers, for example, use their free stock images. I think it's treading on dangerous ground to "control" the product this much. And yet I understand it. My only huge problem is do it before people go to all the trouble, and pay for it on top of that. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Feb 27, 2020 22:51:07 GMT
I think that this site is a really good example of why a better word than "similar" needs to be found: www.bustle.com/articles/170732-57-book-covers-that-look-incredibly-similarYes, there is a broad, generic similarity between the books in each set...but by the same token they are also distinctly different. All of the individual elements are unique. There would certainly be no real danger of confusing one book for another, as would be the case in the seven fantasy novels I posted earlier. So I think that Maggie has hit upon something: the need for a better, more specific, more focused word than "similar." I was hoping someone would snag on the word 'similar'.
Often enough corporations like to use words [in their verbiage] that lend themselves to vagueness, leaving the corporation a lot of wiggle room and the end-user or client virtually none. The problems begin to arise when the descriptor used is[are] too vague.
Part of the issue for SP authors is learning curve. Regardless of profession there is a learning curve on the things you can do legally and the things you can't. Perhaps if Ingram had early on made a point of letting people new to the business know that cheaping out was problematic, the cover issue could [and likely would] have been avoided.
Often enough beginners need to be explicitly told the taboos in a particular field.
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 1, 2020 15:29:19 GMT
I cannot see any problem with Spark's 7 points. But perhaps the word 'deliberately' should be added to some? As to the example '50 Shades of Grey' as a title, only an idiot would emulate such a famous title. (Although there is the instance of the S-Ped book called Spirited Away …) Possibly when thinking up a title one should type it in to a search to see what comes up.
But good luck to Ingram looking at all the books on their, well, 'books' for infringement of those 7 points. I assume they must have software that does it? But surely it should only be applied to books published after April? If not then they should offer refunds, but I bet their small print says " … reserve the right to …"
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Post by ronmiller on Mar 1, 2020 16:30:42 GMT
Yes, "similar" is pretty ambiguous and probably too broad. A lot of covers can have a kind of generic similarity, but I think the question really is about whether or not two books share so many design elements that they might be confused with one another (one good test might be to switch the titles and see if it makes any difference). I should think that in any dispute the earlier book ought to get preference. But "similar" would be almost an understatement regarding the string of covers I included in my last post! When exactly the same artwork is used on 6 different books, I think that one might point a finger and say that they are similar! The only significant difference between any of them is the title of the book. I am not too sure how avoiding making a book cover too similar to another would impede creativity. I think it would encourage it, if anything. So what are they to do with very different covers that have the same image? So many lulu covers, for example, use their free stock images. I think it's treading on dangerous ground to "control" the product this much. And yet I understand it. My only huge problem is do it before people go to all the trouble, and pay for it on top of that. I agree: I don't think it's up to the distributor to decide whether or not a book treads on someone else's copyright or is liable to be confused with half a dozen other books or is even written badly. Those are all issues that ultimately affect the author/publisher. That is, if someone thinks that someone else's cover is too much like their own, that is between the two authors (or the author and the lazy cover designer they hired). You are right, too: it is not fair to punish people who were doing something before a rule was created. I ran across this a few minutes ago: kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200952510One of the items under "Disappointing Content" is -Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience [talk about something being subjective!] Amazon Kindle will even remove your book if "An image interrupts a sentence or paragraph." One of the reasons I've personally stayed away from ebook publishing are all of what I consider invasive rules. I remember how horrified I was a few years ago when I learned that an author had his book rejected because he had a title entirely in lower-case and that was against the rules*. A publisher can demand all sorts of things regarding the content of a book...but Kindle and other ebook distributors are not publishers. (*e.e. cummings would have had trouble self-publishing!) |
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Post by ronmiller on Mar 1, 2020 16:33:35 GMT
I cannot see any problem with Spark's 7 points. But perhaps the word 'deliberately' should be added to some? As to the example '50 Shades of Grey' as a title, only an idiot would emulate such a famous title. (Although there is the instance of the S-Ped book called Spirited Away …) Possibly when thinking up a title one should type it in to a search to see what comes up. But good luck to Ingram looking at all the books on their, well, 'books' for infringement of those 7 points. I assume they must have software that does it? But surely it should only be applied to books published after April? If not then they should offer refunds, but I bet their small print says " … reserve the right to …" Checking to see if any current books have the same title as your own is an excellent idea! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2020 19:28:38 GMT
So what are they to do with very different covers that have the same image? So many lulu covers, for example, use their free stock images. I think it's treading on dangerous ground to "control" the product this much. And yet I understand it. My only huge problem is do it before people go to all the trouble, and pay for it on top of that. I agree: I don't think it's up to the distributor to decide whether or not a book treads on someone else's copyright or is liable to be confused with half a dozen other books or is even written badly. Those are all issues that ultimately affect the author/publisher. That is, if someone thinks that someone else's cover is too much like their own, that is between the two authors (or the author and the lazy cover designer they hired). You are right, too: it is not fair to punish people who were doing something before a rule was created. I ran across this a few minutes ago: kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200952510One of the items under "Disappointing Content" is -Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience [talk about something being subjective!] Amazon Kindle will even remove your book if "An image interrupts a sentence or paragraph." One of the reasons I've personally stayed away from ebook publishing are all of what I consider invasive rules. I remember how horrified I was a few years ago when I learned that an author had his book rejected because he had a title entirely in lower-case and that was against the rules*. A publisher can demand all sorts of things regarding the content of a book...but Kindle and other ebook distributors are not publishers. (*e.e. cummings would have had trouble self-publishing!) Yes, these extremely subjective and ambiguous rules, old and new. As for ebooks, I stayed away from doing them for years. then I though of the many people in third world countries who somehow have internet and can afford ebooks but not print books. so I gave in. |
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 2, 2020 15:27:24 GMT
"I agree: I don't think it's up to the distributor to decide whether or not a book treads on someone else's copyright"
That possibly stems from court cases that began with Napster, that the site/server owner is responsible for the content on it, even if they did not put it there, or it's a file sharing portal. Nowadays imagine the hell that would ensue if the likes of Netflix contained content they did not have the right to have. However, it can be a bit strange. Do you recall my mention of a Spotify-like site for e-books that listed my books for free to their subscribers. On contacting them they insisted they had Ingram's permission to do so (and Lulu's, and when questioned about that, Lulu did not reply to me.) Unlike Spotify the site was not paying me a bean, no matter how little. It's very interesting to note that the copyright on an Actual Copyright page in the e-books states myself as copyright holder and that I should be contacted, not Ingram's and not Lulu.
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 2, 2020 15:37:56 GMT
In one way it is good that places are vetting self-published works, some is rubbish (but just SP works? Some small publishing houses are often classed as SP because they only publish the works of one writer, but one who uses as many professional people as possible to help them) and in another some of the rules kill creativity. Covers can be art, and should not need to follow 'perfect' English rules in the title, for example.
But as Ron said, this is remarkable >> "Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience." Surely that would depend on if one actually likes the subject? If not, then read the Blurb and view the Preview, and if you don't like it, then don't buy it. Amazon allow people to award Stars and leave reviews do they not? So what's that rule about?!
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Mar 2, 2020 17:00:14 GMT
In one way it is good that places are vetting self-published works, some is rubbish (but just SP works? Some small publishing houses are often classed as SP because they only publish the works of one writer, but one who uses as many professional people as possible to help them) and in another some of the rules kill creativity. Covers can be art, and should not need to follow 'perfect' English rules in the title, for example. But as Ron said, this is remarkable >> "Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience." Surely that would depend on if one actually likes the subject? If not, then read the Blurb and view the Preview, and if you don't like it, then don't buy it. Amazon allow people to award Stars and leave reviews do they not? So what's that rule about?! I've seen both TP and SP work where the blurb and preview seemed acceptable whereas reading the entire book was about as enjoyable as having a colonoscopy without benefit of either something to dull the pain or a kiss afterward, as in the work in question was so odious reading it felt like a violation.
Enjoyment of a genre is one thing, and I [like many people] don't buy books in genres or about topics I have no interest in. If the average reader can't enjoy a book due to defects in plot, writing, and so on, why leave it up if it can negatively impact other sales streams?
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Post by ronmiller on Mar 2, 2020 17:30:52 GMT
In one way it is good that places are vetting self-published works, some is rubbish (but just SP works? Some small publishing houses are often classed as SP because they only publish the works of one writer, but one who uses as many professional people as possible to help them) and in another some of the rules kill creativity. Covers can be art, and should not need to follow 'perfect' English rules in the title, for example. But as Ron said, this is remarkable >> "Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience." Surely that would depend on if one actually likes the subject? If not, then read the Blurb and view the Preview, and if you don't like it, then don't buy it. Amazon allow people to award Stars and leave reviews do they not? So what's that rule about?! I've seen both TP and SP work where the blurb and preview seemed acceptable whereas reading the entire book was about as enjoyable as having a colonoscopy without benefit of either something to dull the pain or a kiss afterward, as in the work in question was so odious reading it felt like a violation.
Enjoyment of a genre is one thing, and I [like many people] don't buy books in genres or about topics I have no interest in. If the average reader can't enjoy a book due to defects in plot, writing, and so on, why leave it up if it can negatively impact other sales streams?
Yup. The whole point of a blurb or description is to entice a potential reader to buy the book...it really says nothing toward the book's quality. In traditional publishing, a book has to run a gauntlet of editors, designers, marketers, etc. before it reaches bookshelves. There are no such built-in filters for self-published books. If you buy a book from, say Macmillian, you know that it has been carefully vetted...but when you buy a self-published book you have no idea whether or not the author went to the trouble of enlisting professional help or just threw his book out there into the market, willy nilly. And unless a cover makes it patently obvious that the book is incompetent, there aren't too many ways for a potential purchaser to be forewarned. So I think what is sort of going on with Amazon and Spark is that they are finding themselves having to take on some the roles that traditionally belonged to the book publisher. |
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Mar 3, 2020 13:40:54 GMT
"I've seen both TP and SP work where the blurb and preview seemed acceptable whereas reading the entire book was about as enjoyable as having a colonoscopy without benefit of either something to dull the pain or a kiss afterward, as in the work in question was so odious reading it felt like a violation." Well, some blurb and Previews are written by professional copywriters, the sort who create adverts, but at least it's some sort of guide as to the contents, unlike just the Cover.  I have read books by many famous writers who sell in the millions, often, eventually, it's just their name that sells the books, But I cannot say I 100% enjoyed them, but many people must do. Some get made in to films, also. "Enjoyment of a genre is one thing, and I [like many people] don't buy books in genres or about topics I have no interest in." Indeed. "If the average reader can't enjoy a book due to defects in plot, writing, and so on, why leave it up if it can negatively impact other sales streams?" Because other readers may actually enjoy them? It's often a matter of opinion. Like I said above, I have often watched a film costing umpteen millions to make, based on a book, and have often thought, That book was crap, how come it was made in to a film? (That's also crap, but does well at the box office.) When you take in to account that the best selling fiction seems to be Romance, churned out in their millions as if written by a computer, it's obvious that the average reader has no taste and also does not scan the text in the same way we as self-publishers do. You know what I mean, when you are reading and you think, should there not be a full stop there? |
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I have read books by many famous writers who sell in the millions, often, eventually, it's just their name that sells the books, But I cannot say I 100% enjoyed them, but many people must do. Some get made in to films, also.