Blog Like Nobody's Reading

I've already emailed a few attorneys I have worked for through the years, and I even called the office of Andrew C. Devore of Devore & DeMarco.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/steinbeck-heirs-others-seek-to-slow-google-books-settlement/

My communications with attorneys is protected by attorney/client privilege, so I probably shouldn't be blabbing about them here.

But as my post title suggests, nobody for the time being is reading this blog anyway (I've tried to Google this blog and no matches) so what the heck.

I thought I should start at the beginning with the attorney who helped the Steinbecks extend the opt out period, so I called Andrew Devore last Thursday. http://www.devoredemarco.com/index.html

With only four attorneys, this firm is what is commonly referred to as "boutique." I always thought that term odd to apply to litigators instead of small independent stores that sell alligator bags, but the French word for "shop" has recently been attached to accounting firms, hotels, and even manufacturing. I believe it is meant to imply that you will get one on one individualized attention from either the owner, and one of a few helpful employees.

So, this is how the phone call went. I called the office and asked the receptionist to talk to Andrew Devore. She told me he was on another call. I asked if there was a paralegal I could talk to who is handling the Google Author Settlement. The receptionist paused and said tentatively "Uh, I sometimes help him with that." I took this to mean that she sent and received mail and faxes, made copies, and other generalized administrative duties, because that is my job too.

I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt so I told her that I was opting out of the Google Author Settlement and wanted to talk to someone about that. Another pause from the receptionist before offering to take my name and number.

That evening a wrote an email to Steve Fineman, the managing partner of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, who I used to work for. I cc'ed Elizabeth Cabraser, and Joe Saveri who I remember worked most of the Anti-trust issues. http://www.lchb.com/ I got a response from Steve that he would forward my email to David Stelling in the firm, who is working on a case against Google and YouTube brought on behalf of music publishers. I thanked Steve.

I googled the Music Publisher case and found the other Plaintiffs' counsel involved. It included Girard Gibbs -- I worked for Dan Girard and always liked his no-nonsense style. Eric Gibbs was a gutsy paralegal who I worked with who was mentored by Dan, went to law school, and joined Girard upon graduating. http://www.girardgibbs.com/

On Friday I sent my email to Dan, and also to Bill Audet who used to work for LCHB as well.

http://audetlaw.injuryhelpnetwork.com/

I have yet to hear from Andrew Devore, so I will email him. I will keep you, my nonexistant readers apprised of my progress.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar

So, even in my weakened state the search for one good Esquire continues. After all, the opt out date is roughly three months away, and this awful settlement could be approved in a little over four months.

Having grown up in the 1970's I vaguely remember "Mr. Goodbar". I don't think I ever saw the movie, but I remember the basis of the story -- A teacher by day trolls bars at night and comes to a nasty end. The movie starring Diane Keaton dealt the first blow to singles bars, followed by AIDS in the early 1980's, which swiftly shut down the Sexual Revolution.

Of course, it is said that every generation thinks it invented sex, and the Sex of 1970's took on some overt and dark tones, including "Deep Throat", a burgeoning porn industry, and the cautionary tale for young, sexually active women -- "Looking for Mr. Goodbar."

I googled "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and after a very incomplete Wikipedia entry on the novel, the Imdb.com page and couple of Youtube snippets, the next link was Google Books.

I began to read. I should warn you, (and so should Google) that this novel contains extremely explicit material. I'm by no means a prude, but I do appreciate a little heads up (no double entendre intended) when confronted with raw literature.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wDOctP9Gu5YC&dq=looking+for+mr.+goodbar&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=-gcjSszEIYzCMeKmmLQJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6

Okay, the weird thing is the first time I began to read this book on Google Books it stopped me at page 7, and told me I had reached my preview limit. It then had a nice little disclaimer about how Google respects copyrights, blah, blah, blah. I bypassed that easily enough and had access to the whole book, but it seemed to skip a page here and there.

Now, upon returning to the site, I get no stop or disclaimer (I really wanted to post it here for everyone to read) and can cruise through darn near the whole novel.

Earlier, I only read the dirty parts at the beginning and end of the book, like the average reader would, and decided I really didn't want to read the victim's life story and psychological profile which take up over 350 pages.

My point is, there is no way I would entertain the notion of buying this cow, when I can get the milk for free.

I will now return you to your normally scheduled programming of finding a lawyer to represent my copyright infringement and anti-trust claims against Google.

The Buffet Bites Back

I'm a little under the weather today. Last night I used my $15 food credit at Rampart Casino to partake in their Saturday Night T-Bone steak buffet. I miss their Filet Mignon and Shrimp Scampi Tuesday night buffet, but since Rampart rolled back their buffets a buck or two, they have eliminated the Surf and Turf. Every Vegas buffet strives for one Steak and/or Seafood night, so the Saturday T-Bones have remained.

I ate around 8pm, and it was still crowded -- I was seated next to the noisy bus station. I didn't really bother me though, the steak was well cooked, the mashed potatoes well seasoned, and I always have appreciated the real bacon in the salad bar. I ended my meal with giant strawberries dipped in the chocalate fountain, and a small slice of German Chocolate Cake. All in all it was a really fine meal, and the waitress even checked on my three times, even though I was set with the beer I had brought in, the water and lemon she brought, and the coffee from the self serve bar. I was pretty happy with myself, and I even broke even in the casino.

This morning was a very different story. Let me just say I have new sympathy for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I slept most of the morning to avoid the intense stomach cramps, and Thank God I could sleep. Last time I felt like this I didn't eat anything for 36 hours, surviving on tiny sips of water.

In times like these I also wonder how long food stays in your stomach. Let's ask Google, shall we? The first thing that pops up is yahoo.answers from 2 years ago. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070827050216AAzC98z

The consensus seems to be anywhere from 3 to 8 hours until food travels on through your intestines. I certainly will not be doing the beet test anytime soon. Personally, I've always thought food travels completely through my system in roughly 12 to 24 hours.

This makes me wonder what happened to Ask Jeeves? Let's ask Google. Ask Jeeves was founded in 1996 and became Ask.com in 2005. It is headquartered in Oakland, California (Go Raiders!) I Asked Ask my stomach question but really didn't care for the stuff it gave me. I read one page that talked all about new imaging equipment used to watch the stomach digest food, but it came to no conclusion about how long it takes (it varies). My answers.yahoo.com link was about half way down the page.

So it appears that Google does still have some competition out there in the form of Yahoo, and Ask but really I used Google to get to those sites, so yes, Google dominates the web, and I will sue them for Antitrust if I can find a decent lawyer.

Butterflies are Free, Photos are Not!

I mentioned in my first post that I used to get paid to provide photos to publications. I still get requests for photographs, but increasingly publications are less willing to pay for them, and yes I blame this on Google and Google Books.

In this post I call out Nylon Magazine http://www.nylonmag.com/ for the cheap ass mofos that they are. Specifically, I am calling out Nisha Gopalan who appears surprised that I would not give away Nudie's and my own intellectual property so freely.

She writes - "Hi. I'm working on a global travel guide about key figures in music and music history. (Link for our blog is here: http://museyon.com/) I was wondering if you had any high-resolution press or free-usage photos of Nudie Cohn that we could use? He is such an important part of music history and I really want to include him in the book. Thank you so much in advance for your help! Nisha." nisha@nylonmag.com

I reply - "The fee for usage is $100.00, let me know if you'd like a photo." This is after I dropped my normal quote of $150. (which is the low end of industry standard) to $100., as there is a recession on, and I realize times are tight for everyone.

She replies - "Thanks for your reply. So there are no free use photos? I'm afraid I don't have a budget. But we'd really love to include Nudie Cohn in the book, since Nudie's work is so legendary.
Best
Nisha"

Oh really, Nisha . . . you don't have a budget??!! Let me ask you -- do you work for Nylon magazine for free? Will your book be free? Why in the world would you expect me to give you something for free? I don't walk into a newsstand, pick up an issue of Nylon Magazine, take it the register and ask if it is FREE!!!

If you want a free Nudie photo you'll just have to steal it off Google Books like everyone else! Jeez.

PS - Even "Butterlies are Free" wasn't free, as this link to Google Books illustrates.

http://books.google.com/books?id=B8HRTmLHp4kC&pg=PA4&lpg=PP1&dq=butterflies+are+free&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html

SKOOB ELGOOG

Living in Vegas, my first thought in getting the word out to other authors that might be affected by the Google Author Settlement was looking in my own backyard.

David G. Schwartz at http://www.dieiscast.com/ has written several gaming related tomes.

In searching for one of his first "Suburban Xanadu" on Google Books, I was amused to discover that the text is scanned and shown upside down!

http://books.google.com/books?id=OYC2cRHet00C&pg=PT10&lpg=PP1&dq=suburban+xanadu&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html

As this is the first book I've searched for after my own, I am rather surprised to find this faux paz. I have no idea how many other authors have suffered this fate, but perhaps they are a whole new subclass of plaintiffs I will call "Skoob Elgoog", which is of course Google Books backwards.

Biiitch PLEEEZE!!!

Okay, I have to admit my first blogs may be a little snide, a little snarky, but I haven't resorted to crudely drawing on any celebrity photographs . . . yet.

This particular post is really just an excuse to pimp Angie Tempura at http://www.bitchpleeze.com/

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-celebrity-blogger/1085169/

I can only hope one day to distill my jealous insecurities into barb-filled soundbites with as much eloquence as Ms. Tempura. I am . . . a fan.

And Speaking of Rats . . .

I haven't blogged in the last couple of days, but that doesn't mean all I've been doing is eating free food, drinking free drinks and playing free play in the penny slots to support my freebie (yep, it'll cost ya) Las Vegas lifestyle.

I've also been contemplating the proper course of action to protect my rights, and the rights of my readers. (I'm not delusional, I know no one is reading this.)

That train of thought, unfortunately leads straight to Lawyerville.

Yes, I have been forced to reach out to the legal community, in search of representation.

I usually avoid lawyers like the plague, but alas, it is sometimes necessary to buck up and fight fire with fire. In short, lawyers are a necessary evil.

And, I've learned the hard way that anyone who represents themselves, has a fool for a client.

Yes, I have worked, and in fact do work, for lawyers. But as Julie Roberts said as Erin Brokovich when asked if she was a lawyer "Oh Hell no, I hate lawyers! I just work for them."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TjEklyF7-E

Lawyers are rats, and even though Confucius say people born in the Chinese Year of the Rat like myself are considered charming, attractive to the opposite sex, thrifty, and hard working, I say a rat is a rat.

I'm not the only one. In 200o the New York Times posted an article on the very subject.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/22/weekinreview/the-nation-the-legal-profession-smells-a-rat.html

Here is one of my favorite lawyer/rat jokes --

Why have laboratories started using lawyers instead of rats in experiments? One: There are more of them. Two: The lab assistants don't get attached to them. And three: There are some things a rat just won't do.

And here are some of my favorite lawyer jokes in general -

-- What do you get if you send the Godfather to law school? An offer you can't understand.

-- How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? How many can you afford.

-- A prominent young attorney was on his way to court to begin arguments on a complex lawsuit when he suddenly found himself at the Gates of Heaven. St. Peter started to escort him inside, when he began to protest that his untimely death had to be some sort of mistake. "I'm much too young to die! I'm only 35!" St. Peter agreed that 35 did seem to be a bit young to be entering the pearly gates, and agreed to check on his case. When St. Peter returned, he told the attorney, "I'm afraid that the mistake must be yours, my son. We verified your age on the basis of the number of hours you've billed to your clients, and you're at least 108."

-- A mother and son were walking through a cemetery, and passed by a headstone inscribed "Here lies a good lawyer and an honest man." The little boy read the headstone, looked up at his mother, and asked "Mommy, why did they bury two men there?"

-- An attorney was sitting in his office late one night, when Satan appeared before him. The Devil told the lawyer, "I have a proposition for you. You can win every case you try, for the rest of your life. Your clients will adore you, your colleagues will stand in awe of you, and you will make embarrassing sums of money. All I want in exchange is your soul, your wife's soul, your children's souls, the souls of your parents, grandparents, and parents in law, and the souls of all your friends and law partners." The lawyer thought about this for a moment, then asked, "So, what's the catch?"

Of Gerbils and Google

You can learn a lot of stuff using Google. Usually, a Wikipedia entry is extremely useful, but in the case of "Gerbil" it doesn't give as much information as I would like. For instance it says that Gerbils are illegal in California, but it doesn't say why. It also make absolutely no mention of Richard Gere.

For that information you will have to google "gerbils richard gere" and about.com will fill you in with an amusing and well written piece on this Urban Legend. http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/celebrities/a/richard_gere.htm

Ahhh, so THAT'S why they are illegal in California!!! you say . . . Gerbil ABUSE! Crazy, liberal, Hollywood publicist PETA types attempting damage control! Well, no, not exactly.

If you google "Gerbils Illegal California" you'll learn from Dr. Sue of Davis, Ca. http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/vme/DrSue/gerbil.html that gerbils are hardy, eat a wide variety of plant material, have few natural enemies, and breed like, well . . . gerbils. The California Agricultural Community fears widespread crop damage should gerbils escape their little wire cages, wheels, habitrails, and celebrity orifices to roam free in the Golden State. I would have to disagree that they have few natural enemies, as they certainly do look like tasty little morsels (Moo Goo Gerbil Gai Pan, anyone?), but who am I to argue with Dr. Sue.

But, I digress . . . I really wrote this post to thank the family of John Steinbeck for working to extend the opt out date in the Google Author Settlement. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6654845.html

The new deadline is September 4, 2009. Remember this, as you WILL want to opt out. If not for Steinbeck and his descendants I would have been totally unaware of the deadline and would have been miserable knowing Google was controlling the licensing rights to my book.

Thank you again Gale Knight Steinbeck, this mouse is very grateful.

Misery Loves Company

As Nudie would say "Don't feel like the Lone Ranger!" Yep, misery loves company, and I'm not the only author that felt raped by Google Books.

There is this big ole ugly class action lawsuit, which is pending settlement. Google "Author Google Lawsuit" and you'll get bombarded with information. If you are an actual Author there won't be a whole lotta info here you can actually use -- unless of course you like to read . . . and if you are in fact an Author (capital A if you are published and have had "Author" under your name on a Book Festival name tag) you should be fairly proficient at reading, but more prone to writing for fun and hopefully profit -- if you get my drift.

So let me summarize the lawsuit for you. You see, that used to be my job. I used to work for a class action law firm. You may have received an email from your publisher with a link like this (oops, Google doesn't really give you a good link here . . . even the claims administrator website does a poor job hooking a class member up with the 411), anyway if you are anything like my co-writer Jamie Nudie you would forward the email to me with the message "What the HELL is this???!" If you are anything like the potential class member who would call me all day at work, you would have received the class action notice (in the Google Author Settlement they did not mail notices to Authors so you probably don't know anything about the settlement, and as far as I can tell, there is no one to call and talk to directly), then called me saying "I got this thing in the mail, what the HELL is this???!"

Normally, a class action settlement notice is chock for of all sorts of useful information highlighted in caps, underlined, and sometimes cleverly hidden like the terms of the settlement (i.e. how much money, worthless coupons, or absolutely nothing I will get), how much money the attorneys will get (always in unbelievably disproportionate amounts to the value going to the class -- remember these jokers can get paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars an hour just to write this inane notice, not to mention the piles of equally idiotic briefs that led to this point), the deadline to file a claim, the deadline to opt out and file an objection (I will going over this in detail later), the date of the final settlement hearing, and of course, my phone number.

At this point my advice is to google "Author Google Lawsuit Sucks". This usually works fairly well, but being Google and all, you will probably get distracted by the 9 plus minute YouTube video of a doctor getting served with a lawsuit on a boat by a singing telegram (trust me the description is more interesting than the actual footage -- he doesn't really suck his thumb as promised, but merely licks his fingers while eating.)

If you are really a glutton for punishment, you might want to read the official Google press release http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20081027_booksearchagreement.html
and all I have to say is in the immortal words of Flavor Flav "DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!"

But I digress . . . back to the terms of the settlement of the lawsuit. So, a lot of writers like me were pissed off that Google was scanning their books and the Author's Guild stepped up and sued. This was way back in the year of the Lord 2005 -- fast forward to October of 2008 and the lawyers (eager to get paid) crafted a settlement. Many important issues like copyright infringement and fair use might have been addressed in the lawsuit, but in the light of a settlement all of these trivial (yes, I'm being facetious) things are glossed over in favor of a big fat paycheck for those wiley individuals who follow their names with , Esquire.

But I'm a lowly writer, you say . . . . a published author, whose dreams of royalty checks, book tours, and best adapted screenplay Oscars have been usurped by the reality of . . . REALITY!!! What the Hell does this mean for ME!!!

Okay, okay, the settlement. To be honest, I used to make a living out of deciphering these class action settlements and relaying this (usually depressing) information to the interested masses. On a good day a Class Action Settlement Notice was maybe 4 to 6 pages long, maybe 8 pages at the most. This Class Action Notice weighs in at a whopping 33 pages!!! It almost makes you think that a zealous freelancer getting paid $2 a word crafted this sucker. http://books.google.com/booksrightsholders/

To be even more honest than I attempted to be in the last paragraph, I have not read all 33 pages. I have however, googled in an attempt to let other readers and writers do the work for me. Here are the preliminary figures -- total settlement value (don't get excited, Google gets a big fat tax write off for a huge chunk of this) $125 Million, Money paid to Lawyers -- $30 Million clams (I actually wish I was sitting in a cubicle in the plaintiffs' counsel office taking phone calls from class members like ME, dreaming of a green, um, I mean white Christmas -- and I could of been if my employers ever took me seriously, they could have been cashing $15 Million dollar checks -- jeez, I guess the joke is on them) -- $34 Million dollars to fund a NONPROFIT (tax deductible to Google) shell organization to supposedly administer money that will never be collected from folks that look at sections of our books online then decide there is no reason to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free -- and drum roll, please . . . $45 Million dollars to be divided between Authors & Publishers (two separate subclasses) for the books that have been scanned by Google. This somehow shakes down to a whopping $60 for you, my friend, the Author. Yep, I said $60, and the option to have Google take your book down from its site, or to have it funnel non-existent royalties (the milk, the cow) to you.

But you say -- $45 Million + $34 Million + $30 Million that doesn't add up to $125 Million!!! It never does . . . it never does. That is why your mother wanted you to become a lawyer.

Oh, the IRONY!

I love Google, really I do. I use it all day long. I google myself, my friends, my family, the folks I sell stuff on eBay to (if they live in Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side), potential clients, potential employers, the cowboy who trains reining horses and is looking for an apprentice on craigslist (Howdy Kevin!), long lost ex-boyfriends who apparently have fallen off the face of the earth, joined the witness protection program, or never made enough of themselves to have any google-cred, co-workers (Maceo you look dashing on your Facebook page), basically anyone who am interested in for whatever reason gets the Google treatment. Of course, people aren't the only ones who are search worthy -- inanimate objects, places, ideas, insects (you may be shy Black Widow Spider, but if I see you in my garage or under my stairs I will try to kill you), food, disease (I'm certain I contracted Scabies from a slot machine), movies, song lyrics, well . . . the list goes on and on.

I'm so over Myspace, Facebook looks boring and slightly annoying, I don't text therefore I do not Tweet, which leaves me with Google.

I never resented the fact that Google has made like a jillion dollars, I always considered the free service I received from the search engine a wonderful thing about living in this modern age where information is traded so openly. That is until the day I discovered that my book had been scanned by Google and was there on the world wide web for all the world to see. To be exact, as of today pages 1 through 37 plus the cover and the back are available for perusal.

To other authors this may not seem like such a bad thing as only a part of the work is revealed, but my book is basically a picture book, and my pictures used to bring me income. I have found photos from my book on eBay and scattered across to blogging universe, as they are oh so simply downloaded and saved from the Google books site. So easy in fact, the photo on this blog was lifted and placed in less than 10 seconds. It is one of my favorite photos, a photo I have been paid money for. I believe I received usage fees from the New York Times, and the London Guardian when it was reproduced in their publications.

So you can see my frustration . . . I only wish I could laugh in the bald faced infringement and piracy with the vigor of Nudie behind the wheel of his Nudie Mobile. You see, I wrote a book about Nudie Cohn. He is my idol. A character so famous in his own time, he never bothered to trademark his Ellis Island given moniker. A guy who invented himself, the original Rhinestone Cowboy, and never thought that foreign interests, and Google would dare one day to capitalize on his story, image, and likeness, stealing food from the mouths of his family.

It's ironic, isn't it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony Not the mere inconvenience of rain on your wedding day (Hello Alanis Morissette! yes, I googled it), but that real "live by the sword, die by the sword" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_by_the_sword,_die_by_the_sword stabbing pain of getting royally (um, royalty?) screwed by someone or something you relied on.

I'm not sure how Nudie www.nudiesrodeotailor.com would react to this injustice. I often ask myself "What Would Nudie Do?"

One thing is for certain, he would not have stood idly by and let Google run ram shod over his legacy. Nudie was famous for his generosity and good humor, but he was no body's fool.