Now that Google has declared war on China, can it take on a diminutive 80-year-old science-fiction and fantasy author? Probably, but Ursula K. Le Guin is not going down without a fight. It all started when the formidable author of the classic Earthsea novels and, most recently, the Virgil-inspired Lavinia, resigned her long membership in the Authors Guild over the group’s support of the Google settlement on copyrighted material; that letter here. Le Guin is also trying to enlist as many writers as she can to oppose what she calls the Google Putsch.
“Will The Google Settlement Leave Ursula Le Guin Dispossessed?” by Scott Timberg, io9 1-25-09
The Google Putsch!
May it fail like its namesake.
From the 18th, Here’s Le Guin and Margaret Killjoy.
The whole thing’s inspiring and worth a view (Le Guin reads from The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, Killjoy presents re: anarchist fiction, they both answer questions) but at around 57 min., Le Guin pitches her petition and talks copyright briefly.
Can’t say I’m surprised by any of it – Google’s been one of the most wretched boils on the arse of the infoscape for, what, over eleven years now? Anyhow, for whatever good it all does, the Laboratorium remains on top of it.
Unfuck Google, have fun and cuídate.
UPDATE, 2-5-10
Odd couple? Webster Tarpley schools this RT talking head (though props, once again, to RT for even going there in the first place) on Spookle’s sordid origins,
and Steve Watson sums the situation up nicely at Prison Planet. We’ll see how the book settlement shit shakes out on the 18th.