Yesterday, a mob (no other word for it) of misinformed, angry people who, when interviewed, said they were part of a group formed by Glenn Beck, shut down a heath care reform town hall in Tampa.
The local NBC television affiliate, when reporting on this, gave no context on what’s behind such events. Instead of analysis, the station just showed angry demonstrators and then said, go to our website and give us your opinion.
Give your opinion? Based on what? Zero reporting of what inspired the demonstrators? Zero reporting on whether that inspiration had any basis in fact?
So, why should anyone be surprised that the situation is now escalating and, on Twitter, an anti-health insurance reform leader is telling fellow protesters to bring guns to use against union leaders and community organizers at subsequent town halls?
When American television news became infotainment and ratings trumped all, we lost an important means of educating people. Almost nobody is well-informed in this country, despite making the effort of watching so-called 24-hour news stations. CNN, calling itself an all-news network, hosted Glenn Beck until he was wooed away by Faux News, and still hosts the race-baiter Lou Dobbs!
With the simmering racism that’s stoked by Beck, Dobbs, and others, we have a populace, or a large swathe of it, that’s about as ignorant and probably close to as resentful as the poor undereducated masses of some oil-rich countries. Over there, they believe bin Laden. Over here, their American counterparts believe Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
As a result, many are nursing pseudo-grievances that can and do lead to violence.
And now, we have the former Republican VP candidate, stirring the flames, crazily claiming that the president’s “death panel” wants to euthanize her Downs Syndrome child.
All of the above are acting in the service of the health insurance industry so insurers can keep their near-monopolies in their respective areas, and suck the lifeblood out of the very people they’re manipulating into hate and potential violence. But the mainstream news media won’t report that. Instead, everything is treated with so-called balance, with opportunities for he said/she said, as if there were no actual truth to be uncovered, just opinion that you form based on the words of flacks and then, go post on the TV stations’ websites.
This insanity is the fault of news executives who care nothing about fact and everything about ratings. They hire industry mouthpieces and nutcases who can manipulate the ignorant into a frothing frenzy.
Is there a Cronkite in the house? When will the mainstream media finally stop playing games and tell it like it is? Or are they going to wait until those twitterers show up with their guns and start blasting away?
– Anita Bartholomew
Authors Guild sends authors another misleading letter about Google settlement
Tags: Authors Guild, Authors Guild misleads authors, class action, copyright, copyright infringement, Google settlement, lawsuit
You have to wonder why, if the Google settlement is as good a deal as the Authors Guild keeps insisting it is, the honchos over there keep misleading their members when attempting to gain support.
Any settlement worth signing onto doesn’t need to be spun, finessed, or made to appear something it isn’t. If it’s worth signing onto, you simply list the actual benefits. You don’t pretend authors will get benefits that the settlement doesn’t, can’t, and won’t give them.
Although I was once a member of the Authors Guild, I am no longer. But friends do forward the emails they get. And I found the text of that email, inviting all authors and agents to a free teleconference this coming Thursday, on the AG website. I don’t have the time to fact-check everything, as it would require me to dig through the settlement agreement again, but here are some obvious whoppers I spotted that required no new research:
AG CLAIM: the only way to ensure that your book will not be completely removed from the database, and thus benefit from Google search, is not to opt-out.
AG CLAIM: The settlement offers a 63/37 split** in your favor … It’s a good deal. For comparison: Amazon buys e-books at a 50% discount from publishers. If you’re a self-published author, the split is 35/65 — in Amazon’s favor. Newspapers face a 30/70 split — again in Amazon’s favor — for electronic distribution of their content.
AB RESPONSE: Misleading. Here’s what the AG isn’t telling you about the above “good deal.” You’re not getting 63%. The Book Rights Registry takes delivery of that 63 percent, and takes its cut off the top. The BRR’s cut is unknown, and unspecified in the settlement. Estimates are that it can be anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of that 63 percent. Whatever is left after the BRR takes its cut goes to the publisher which then parcels out your share to you. What will that share be? Whatever your contract says it is.
Not exactly sounding like a 63 percent share any longer, is it?
AG CLAIM: Want to negotiate a different deal with Google? Turn off all display uses of your works and go for it. At any time.
AB RESPONSE: Huh? You can’t re-negotiate the terms through the settlement, of course. Those terms are set in stone if/when the settlement is approved. Unchangeable. Approved settlement = done deal.
So, I wondered what on earth the AG was up to with the above claim. As I keep saying, you certainly can get better terms through the Google Book Partners Program if for no other reason than you won’t have the BRR as a silent partner, skimming off the top. (Fun fact: 50 percent of the BRR will be appointed by the AG).
The Google Books Partner Program is the only current way to get a better deal from Google in its book search and scanning venture, to my knowledge. And you can be in both the program and the settlement. Here’s what the settlement FAQ says:
So, the only thing I can figure, re its re-negotiation claim, is that the AG will suggest, during its free conference call on Thursday, that you opt in, tell Google not to display your book, then sign up for the Google Books Partner Program. But, if I’m reading the FAQ right, the catch is that, once you’re in the settlement, you’re stuck with the same terms, or as the FAQ says, “the same uses or revenue models as the settlement.”
If that’s the strategy AG plans to offer in its “go for it” re-negotiation recommendation, my brain hurts just thinking of the convoluted reasoning.
Why on earth would you give up your right to sue if Google oversteps, bring in a partner who’ll take an unknown percentage of the proceeds, sign a hundreds-pages long agreement you probably don’t understand … just to seek the better deal that you can only get outside the settlement?
Can’t wait to hear what they say next.
– Anita Bartholomew