Blackmask titles at risk
- From: John Mark Ockerbloom <ockerblo@[redacted]>
- Subject: Blackmask titles at risk
- Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:19:22 EDT
For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, Blackmask is going to court
in a suit brought by Conde Nast. Blackmask is still publishing Doc Savage
and Shadow stories online and in print despite a cease-and-desist and offer
to walk away from CN (who appear to hold the copyrights).
(Background from David Moynihan at
http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/news.cgi?a=article&ID=1144477952 ;
some comments, including one from me, at
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/08/conde_nast_sues_over.html )
As David notes in his announcement, "The case goes before a [magistrate] in
Greenbelt, MD on May 8. After that, things might happen to this site..."
I am not optimistic about this case, and consider it not unlikely that
things might indeed happen to his site not long afterwards, possibly
including it going offline entirely. Because I've been linking to them
for over 100 of my listings, I've recently been trying to find whatever
backup links I can find for those books. I've found backups for most of my
old listings, though some of them are at mirrors whose own lifetime isn't
entirely clear to me. And there are a few I've not so far been able to
find backups for:
Algernon Blackwood: John Silence (though I think the short stories
might be covered by Gutenberg)
Guy Newll Boothy: Dr. Nikola books
Charles Brocken Brown: Arthur Mervyn
Charles Dickens: Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins
Peter George: Red Alert (may want to double-check copyright status)
Jonathan Latimer: Solomon's Vineyard
Charles Reade: Griffith Gaunt, or Jealousy
Jack of All Trades
The Jilt
Francois Villon: Ballads Done Into English From the French of
Francois Villon
If anyone knows of other places these books are posted, I'd be very interested
in hearing about it.
And if there are public domain books you like that you currently read from
Blackmask, you might want to make backup copies of them soon. (You may
want to first double-check to make sure they actually are in the public
domain.)
John Mark Ockerbloom