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Originally Posted by Redcard
But he, as an author, has to know that the history of books SHOWS things change when publishers have control over them....
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I'm sorry, but your post doesn't really make sense.
I see no particular reason or likelihood for millions of people to correct each other about textual variations. Publishers don't change the sexual orientation of main characters between printings; at best they might correct a few errors.
Public domain versions of texts tend to be full of formatting and text errors, that gradually get changed and updated when volunteers are sufficiently motivated. We've already seen authors take a public domain book about the attempts of upper-class English gentry pursuing advantageous marriages, and adding in zombie attacks. Is this a bad thing or a good thing? I can't tell from your post.
Public domain books are a constant source of derivative works, which vary greatly from the original.
West Side Story was a famous rewrite of
Romeo and Juliet.
Apocalypse Now -- a critically acclaimed film -- drew freely from and radically rewrote
Heart of Darkness. The aforementioned
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was quite the sensation last year.
Copyrighted works also produce derivative works. Sometimes these works hew close to the original material (e.g. the Harry Potter films), other times they are recruited to the exact opposite point of the source (e.g.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a strike against treating simulated humans as humans;
Blade Runner. argues that androids should be treated like humans).
Meanwhile, no one has edited the novella of
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to match
Blade Runner. It's not going to happen.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Redcard
So the question is, who do you want in control of your ideas and language? The few, or the many?
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This is a straw man.
First, ideas can't be copyrighted. Specific arrangements of words yes, ideas no.
Second, no one individual or organization truly controls language.
Third, Franzen isn't saying anything at all about public domain. I seriously doubt he'd be glad to hear that the entire
ouvre of Shakespeare is available for free at the click of a mouse. He's protesting a culture of instant gratification, and claims that digital works lack the same permanence of a paper book in one's own hands.