Kopic's Doctor Who & Torchwood News |
- 'Doctor Who' puts its own twist on 'A Christmas Carol' - Kansas City Star
- 'Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol' review: classic redo - San Francisco Chronicle
- Torchwood 2017
- Twisted Media to work on Torchwood Series 4 - The Doctor Who News Page (blog)
- Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - Brisbane Times
- Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - The Age
- Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - Sydney Morning Herald
- Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - WA today
- Advent update: Day twenty-three
- Look Who's steaming up the Tardis: Karen Gillan poses in a raunchy basque as ... - Daily Mail
- Follow WhovianNet on Twitter for the very latest!
- Plot details for new audiobook, The Jade Pyramid
- Charlie McDonnell explores the TARDIS in new video
- Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Out - Doctor Who TV (blog)
- Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Out
- Off the Wall: Tired of holiday cheer? - Newsday
- The Silent Speculation
- The Top 5 Late-Night TV Moments of 2010 - Anglophenia (blog)
- Seven More Years Of Torchwood!? - Comic Book Movie
- Who-bu Bubu?
- Download a Free Audiobook of "How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse" from Audible.com - American Consumer News
- Spoiler-Free Review of Saturday's Doctor Who Special - io9
- Matt Smith: I love Doctor Who - Monsters and Critics.com
- VIDEO: The Superman Christmas Carol, "Jor-El, Jor-El" - Bleeding Cool News
- 'Who' Smith: 'The Doctor loves Christmas' - Digital Spy
- Seven Years of Torchwood? - The Doctor Who News Page (blog)
- K9: UK DVD release update - The Doctor Who News Page (blog)
- Matt Smith's Doctor Who love - The List
- BBC, Starz plan to make Torchwood for next 7 years?
- Shadows of the Vashta Nerada released online early!
- Christmas picks - drama on the BBC - seenit.co.uk
- Couple lose $800000 despite giving right answer on Million Dollar Drop after ... - Daily Mail
- TV Review: A Wonderful, Demented 'Doctor Who' Christmas Special - Indie Wire (blog)
- Find the Shadows of the Vashta Nerada!
- A Christmas Carol is “Jolly”
- Dan Owen's Top 10 Television Shows of 2010 - Obsessed With Film
- What is… The Chattath Factor?
- Doctor Who - The Adventure Games: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Now available TODAY!
- Going, Going, Gone!
- Doctor Who's madcap take on A Christmas Carol - Telegraph.co.uk
- Festive Tardis right on time - Sydney Morning Herald
- Best Christmas sitcom specials of all time - TV Scoop
- Is Doctor Who the new Santa? - Telegraph.co.uk
- BBC releases 'Shadows Of The Vashta Nerada' early - Shadowlocked (blog)
- The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Ten
- TV Choice: Festive look at Top Gear, Doctor Who and more (part 1) - Get Bracknell
- Talk of the Town Doctors assistant is looking for a geek - Scotsman
- Katherine Jenkins interview - Telegraph.co.uk
- Smith's Festive Zeal
- December Podcast 004 - 22 December 2010
| 'Doctor Who' puts its own twist on 'A Christmas Carol' - Kansas City Star Posted: 22 Dec 2010 02:19 PM PST
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| 'Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol' review: classic redo - San Francisco Chronicle Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:19 PM PST
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| Posted: 22 Dec 2010 11:43 AM PST
Could Torchwood run for another 7 years? According to Captain Jack himself, John Barrowman, that's the plan. Barrowman told the Read more ...
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| Twisted Media to work on Torchwood Series 4 - The Doctor Who News Page (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:39 AM PST
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| Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - Brisbane Times Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:32 AM PST
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| Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - The Age Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:31 AM PST
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| Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - Sydney Morning Herald Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:31 AM PST
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| Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol - December 26 - WA today Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:31 AM PST
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| Advent update: Day twenty-three Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:00 AM PST Head over to the usual place to check out our twenty-third festive treat! We've been counting down the days and getting ready for A Christmas Carol all month, and the big moment has nearly arrived! Before then, we've still got a couple more surprises left for you, so stick with us to see what's in store… As [...] | ||
| Look Who's steaming up the Tardis: Karen Gillan poses in a raunchy basque as ... - Daily Mail Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:24 AM PST
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| Follow WhovianNet on Twitter for the very latest! Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:53 AM PST If you're not doing so already, don't forget to follow our Twitter feed (@wnfeed) for our up-to-the-minute Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane musings! We'd love to be able to get to 1000 followers for the new year, so please help us spread the word and broaden our ever-growing community of Doctor Who fans! In return, we'll bring [...] | ||
| Plot details for new audiobook, The Jade Pyramid Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:38 AM PST As we previously reported, a brand new audiobook entitled The Jade Pyramid will be released next month, and its plot details have now been revealed! In the story, which has been written exclusively for audio by Martin Day, the TARDIS is drawn to a Shinto shrine in medieval Japan, where the Doctor and Amy are met by village elder [...] | ||
| Charlie McDonnell explores the TARDIS in new video Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:28 AM PST Part two of Charlie McDonnell's exclusive Doctor Who Confidential videos has been released online and on the red button today. On his second day behind the scenes of A Christmas Carol, Christmas came early as he was lucky enough to explore the TARDIS set before watching Matt Smith and Katherine Jenkins filming a scene! You can watch the video [...] | ||
| Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Out - Doctor Who TV (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:22 AM PST
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| Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Out Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:10 AM PST
The fourth Doctor Who Adventure Game, Shadows of the Vashta Nerada, is available to download for free Read more ...
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| Off the Wall: Tired of holiday cheer? - Newsday Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:09 AM PST
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| Posted: 22 Dec 2010 07:59 AM PST What exactly is The Silence? Is it a Freudian Ingmar Bergman film? A rubbish Alexandra Burke song? The name of a band that eventually became Mott the Hoople (now that would be an episode!) Its all these things and more, much more if Piers Wenger is to be believed. For Wenger has been kind enough, if not to spill the beans to Sci Fi Magazine , then to at least dribble a little onto our collective metaphorical floor, dismissing all of the Doctors past enemies in one fell comment:
I'll say it'll have significance. In fact, i don't have to because Wenger also dropped something a little significant himself about the mute menace:
What could this mean? Don't ask me; ask the Internet by commenting below people! (via DoctorWhoTV) | ||
| The Top 5 Late-Night TV Moments of 2010 - Anglophenia (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 07:27 AM PST
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| Seven More Years Of Torchwood!? - Comic Book Movie Posted: 22 Dec 2010 07:05 AM PST
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| Posted: 22 Dec 2010 06:41 AM PST Partworking its way onto shelves this Spring will be a brand new Doctor Who magazine- featuring artwork by Ubu Bubu cartoonist Jamie Smart. Smart revealed via his blog that the BBC had commissioned him to continue the series after producing a sample issue based, which was released in an undisclosed part of the country, on forthcoming series earlier in the year. Blogging, Smart said:
For those in the dark, Ubu Bubu is a four part comic mini-series about an uber cute and the hideous demons who possess his soul. Working together kitty and its demonic possessor invade the home of two unwitting children and begin to prepare for the forthcoming apocalypse. (via Digital Spy) | ||
| Posted: 22 Dec 2010 06:24 AM PST
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| Spoiler-Free Review of Saturday's Doctor Who Special - io9 Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:24 AM PST
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| Matt Smith: I love Doctor Who - Monsters and Critics.com Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:05 AM PST
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| VIDEO: The Superman Christmas Carol, "Jor-El, Jor-El" - Bleeding Cool News Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:00 AM PST
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| 'Who' Smith: 'The Doctor loves Christmas' - Digital Spy Posted: 22 Dec 2010 04:39 AM PST
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| Seven Years of Torchwood? - The Doctor Who News Page (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 04:06 AM PST
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| K9: UK DVD release update - The Doctor Who News Page (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 03:01 AM PST
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| Matt Smith's Doctor Who love - The List Posted: 22 Dec 2010 02:42 AM PST
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| BBC, Starz plan to make Torchwood for next 7 years? Posted: 22 Dec 2010 02:40 AM PST John Barrowman has suggested that there's a long future ahead for Torchwood as the BBC hopes to make it for the next seven years as part of their collaboration with Starz. "I have turned down a load of other shows to make Torchwood," the actor told The Scottish Sun. "We'll be filming it in LA as it's now [...] | ||
| Shadows of the Vashta Nerada released online early! Posted: 22 Dec 2010 01:42 AM PST The official Doctor Who website has given us an early Christmas present today in the form of Shadows of the Vashta Nerada, which has been released a few days early! Originally billed for a Christmas Day release, the fourth and final Adventure Game of the series sees the Doctor and Amy discover a sub-aquatic base that's been attacked by a [...] | ||
| Christmas picks - drama on the BBC - seenit.co.uk Posted: 22 Dec 2010 01:23 AM PST
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| Couple lose $800000 despite giving right answer on Million Dollar Drop after ... - Daily Mail Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:43 AM PST
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| TV Review: A Wonderful, Demented 'Doctor Who' Christmas Special - Indie Wire (blog) Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:34 AM PST
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| Find the Shadows of the Vashta Nerada! Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:23 AM PST From where I'm sitting, you're busy reading this – when you should have headed over to the BBC's Official Doctor Who site to download Shadows of the Vashta Nerada! That's right, the Christmas gift from the Doctor Who website is available four days early, and you can download and play it today. Featuring the voices of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, Shadows of the Vashta Nerada is the final "episode" of the series of PC and Mac games made available under the Doctor Who: The Adventure Games title and designed and developed by Sumo Digital. The Vashta Nerada is the name given to the cannibalistic shadow dwellers that we first encountered in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, back in 2008, and may or may not play a part in the arc of the 2011 series… Written by Phil Ford (Waters Of Mars, City of the Daleks), Shadows of the Vashta Nerada sees the Doctor and Amy (voiced by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan) arrive in an aquatic sea-bed colony called Poseidon and features a breath-taking plot which surrounds a real-world conspiracy – and, of course, takes place at Christmas! So by now, you should have stopped reading and hit the link to download Shadows of the Vashta Nerada! | ||
| A Christmas Carol is “Jolly” Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:06 AM PST The Grand Moff has spoken – and he has decreed that The End of Time was a bit dark, hence the decision to make A Christmas Carol nice and "jolly"! Speaking to the New York Times, the man behind the current incarnation of Doctor Who – which is remarkably different yet strangely the same as his predecessor's says that he decided to lighten things up this year following the sense of impending doom that followed the Tenth Doctor around in 2009.
Of course, Dickens' A Christmas Carol features poverty, infant death and ghosts. We know that Moffat's A Christmas Carol features poverty and unfair suspended animation so far, so don't expect Only Fools and Horses… (Via Digital Spy) | ||
| Dan Owen's Top 10 Television Shows of 2010 - Obsessed With Film Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:54 PM PST
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| What is… The Chattath Factor? Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:48 PM PST As part of their original story run, Fineline Productions have released a new Doctor Who adventure called The Chattath Factor. Written by Will Hadcroft, the story has been in development for a very long time now, work actually beginning on it in 2002. Finally, the piece is finished and ready for you to enjoy. The plot harkens back to Doctor Who in its "old school" days and the plot revolves around:
Talking about his influences whilst writing the story, Will Hadcroft cited Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks as two major resources:
Director and Producer Gareth Preston was also keen to comment:
Part one of this very special adventure is available to download now at the Fineline Productions website with part two due to be released in the early part of 2011. (Via GallifreyNewsBase) | ||
| Doctor Who - The Adventure Games: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada Now available TODAY! Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:45 PM PST
For all you luck UK bound License Fee paying Doctor Who fans. The fourth Doctor Who Adventures game "Shadows of the Vashta Nerada" has just gone live on the BBC official Doctor Who website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames the official blurb reads as such | ||
| Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:33 PM PST Three items from the classic series of Doctor Who have been sold as part of Bonhams Entertainment Memorabila Auction. Lot 101: a black jacket worn by Jon Pertwee, estimated to raise between £3,000 to £4,000, sold for £3,240, Lot 102; a script from Fifth Doctor serial Resurrection of the Daleks, estimated to fetch £200 to £300, sold for £240 and Lot 103: a Sea Devil costume from another Fifth Doctor serial Warriors of the Deep, estimated to earn £800 to £1,200, sold for over a thousand pounds its top estimate-bringing home £2,280. The black jacket was autographed by Jon himself while the script contained handwritten notes and came in a folder marked 'Warehouse, Space ship (Dalek), Composite'. The Sea Devil costume came complete with a latex mask of the devil himself. (via GallifreyNewsBase) | ||
| Doctor Who's madcap take on A Christmas Carol - Telegraph.co.uk Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:06 PM PST
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| Festive Tardis right on time - Sydney Morning Herald Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:02 PM PST
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| Best Christmas sitcom specials of all time - TV Scoop Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:00 PM PST
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| Is Doctor Who the new Santa? - Telegraph.co.uk Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:51 PM PST
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| BBC releases 'Shadows Of The Vashta Nerada' early - Shadowlocked (blog) Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:01 PM PST
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| The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Ten Posted: 21 Dec 2010 09:46 PM PST Some observations about e-books and illegal downloading. Those wishing to enter the quiz only have until midnight my time tonight. It's still very much worth a shot. Those hard questions have foiled a lot of people. First up, some news. Last night Tor.com announced their Twelve Doctors of Christmas, a series of blogs about the different leads in Doctor Who, starting on Boxing Day. On the 28th, I'll be writing about the Third Doctor, and I'll be joined by such luminaries as Seanan McGuire, Pia Guerra, Graham Sleight and Mark Waid. Should be good! And the latest issue of SF fanzine The Drink Tank is online, looking forward to Worldcon in Reno next August, and giving Hugo voters some ideas as to what to nominate this time round. (The Hugo nomination phase starts on January 1st.) Tim Powers being the Guest of Honour, there's a distinct Powers slant to the issue, do check it out. Now, I've been saying for months that I'd do a blog about e-books, but I've been putting it off in sheer terror. Because, and let me quote a fellow author here... 'E-books, self-publication and agents are like abortion, marijuana and taxation - it seems no one can discuss them rationally' - David Levine. And I've seen the truth of that every time I mention this subject online or in public. But having done some research, I don't want to let it go to waste. So I thought I'd break it down into a few bullet points, and then stand ready at my comments list with a shotgun and a nervy smile. 1: Publishers have always thought that when you buy a hardback, what you're paying more for is the chance to own it on the day of publication. Paperbacks are cheaper because they come out a year later. The reading public, on the other hand, always thought what they were paying more for was the extra physical mass and quality. (Actually, a hardback costs, one publisher told me, only from 50p to a couple of pounds more to make.) So obviously publishers think an e-book, out on the day of publication, should cost the same as a hardback. And obviously the reading public think it should cost less than a paperback. From this difference in perception stem all subsequent horrors. 2: British publishers are faced with an additional cost for e-books in the form of V.A.T., Valued Added Tax, currently set at 17.5% of the sale price going to the government, set to rise to 20% next year. This tax doesn't apply to printed books. I asked Ed Vaizey MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, if this was going to change, and was told there were no plans to alter the V.A.T. rate at the moment. 3: The concept that one should give away the e-book version of a title online, and then make money through sales of the physical version of that book, as espoused by some well-known authors, only makes financial sense (to anyone making a living purely on their writing) while the e-book market forms a small percentage of the general market. If, as seems possible now, e-books become the favoured format, then authors doing that will be left sitting on the kerb with signs saying 'will write for nothing'. I've been present when one major author, known for their support for this system, changed their mind in the face of recent developments. To bet one's career on the idea that a new delivery system will fail to become a major force seems to me to be betting against the future, which is surely an unwise stance for any SF writer. 4: People just like stealing stuff. As a recent Wired magazine article pointed out, every utopian excuse for illegally downloading music, from the presence of Digital Rights Management on tracks to the inability to move tracks between systems, has now been swept away by a market desperate to sell more music. There's literally no excuse any more. But this year illegal music downloading continued to grow, with 1.2 billion tracks being stolen in the UK alone. 5: It's hard, these days, to tell people they've done a minor wrong. Because one is now either a saint (or whatever the atheist version of that is) or a paedophile. Illegal download sites look perfectly normal, and ominous orchestral tones don't strike up when you visit one. 'Everybody' does it, and people who do are often quite surprised at the thought that they're doing something wrong. But they are. A small thing. They're each stealing small sums of money from creators. But put those minor wrongs together, and they become an enormous problem. Villifying these people rather than educating or preventing them will just convince them that their minor wrong is cool and rebellious. A lot of them tell themselves that already. They're sticking it to the man. The trouble is, the man in question is me. And those like me. 6: If everybody did illegally download, it couldn't continue as a practice, because no further music or movies could be made. (Except by those willing, through existing wealth or poetic poverty, not to make a living.) Illegal downloaders rely, parasitically, on an honest mainstream who purchase this stuff. The 'alternative revenue sources' that might fund every creator who's not already rich enough not to care simply haven't appeared for the vast majority. And it's hard to see where they'll ever come from when a dearth of illegal downloading can simply put an end to a market. 7: Illegal downloading is already changing the shapes of markets. Profit margins on comics are such that if an ongoing title doesn't sell hugely, it ends after five issues. This is why you don't get many of those quirky, second string titles that fans used to love, and see so many events and crossovers. Worried that The X Factor TV talent show is dominating the British pop music charts? That plays to an older audience who wouldn't know one end of an illegal download from the other. No SF on TV? SF fans, like any niche audience, are more likely to illegally download, and those 'ratings' are invisible to advertisers. The anime market is a particularly sensitive one, where many titles now never make it to the west, because theft has almost destroyed the legal market. Again, it's the children's and more mainstream titles that have avoided this. You can't protest about these changes in culture if you're illegally downloading, because you're one of the things driving them. 8: I think, and have had many conversations to support this view, that a large majority of creators in all media loathe illegal downloading. But few of them are willing to say anything in public. Reasons range from a desire to be seen to be cutting edge, to a fear of alienating one's audience, to fear of a denial of service attack on one's website. I've been on a lot of panels where, asked that question, everyone answers an entirely different one, about how 'e-books are the future'. I feel that the one thing we can do, as creators, to affect illegal downloaders is to make it clear that we withold our approval. You can't be an enthusiastic and beloved fan of a great writer and at the same time steal their stuff. 9: I hate how saying this stuff in public results in friends and close associates of mine getting into terrible wheedling conversations with me about it. They're almost like the debates children have with adults about where naughty behaviour begins. 'You're stealing 6p off me every time.' 'Ah, but if I asked you to lend me 6p...' 'That would be fine.' 'If you gave me 6p...' 'That would be fine.' 'If I found 6p in the street...' 'Yes, yes, all that would be fine. You putting your hand in my pocket and taking 6p from me is what isn't fine!' And as for 'Well, you should be fashionable and technologically savvy enough to just make 6p appear out of thin air. Like I did when I took it out of your pocket. It's hardly my fault you can't do that!' or 'I'm probably going to give you your 6p back, possibly 12p or even 24p!' Well, statistics don't support your highly optimistic view. Statistics say most people who nick my 6p just keep it. And forgive me if I can't feed my family on 'probably'. Most friends of mine at least don't go that far. These conversations are about guilt, about weighing perceived mini-societal approval of theft against a creator's disapproval. But do me a favour: we can still be friends if you've stolen my stuff, just don't seek my approval for having done it. You can't get it. 10: Oh, and people who have those awful conversations with me, in person or online, where they try to find all sorts of intellectual justification for minor theft, always start by using my first name. 'Paul...' It gives their speech the air of a wise old head talking down to someone who's obviously new in the world. Yeah, that annoying. 11: I've done it too. I taped music when I was in college, I used to have a pirated word processor program. I stopped doing that when I realised it made me a hypocrite. I wasn't a war criminal when I did it, and neither were you, illegal downloader reading this. We were both just doing minor wrongs that, across populations, add up. 12: Some authors with smaller profiles have benefited from 'alternative revenue streams' like befriending illegal downloaders and asking for their 6p afterwards. I'd say that their success, which I wouldn't at all begrudge them, is a question of having gone from nearly nothing to a tiny something. And stemmed from an emotion that only stretches so far: making guilty people feel better. I don't know if it'll fly as a career. (Which is not to say, I emphasise, that I'm decrying the quality of the work involved.) 13: Of course, obviously, hugely, there remain, considering e-books only, a number of problems in terms of satisfying both reading public and publishers. The market isn't where digital music's is. These problems have formed the meat of almost all discussions about this subject, to the point where I hoped I could get through this post without mentioning D.R.M. or 'the agent model'. Because these discussions are mazes full of mirrors, the source of much of what makes David Levine sigh. And the comments thread will do this stuff without me saying again the same things many people have said already. So what am I against? 14: Regionality on books seems Victorian in the same way regional DVD releasing is. I decided when I got my iPad to only buy e-book fiction from now on. If I can't download Mary Robinette Kowal's Shades of Milk and Honey now, I'll wait until it does appear as an e-book (such a wait being not an excuse for theft, but rather a temptation towards it, to deal with another often ethically muddied area of complaint), not give in and buy the hardback. Regionality exists to aid marketing campaigns and help prevent illegal downloading. There are good reasons for it. As the e-book share of the market climbs, those reasons may decline in importance. I've heard some clever ways of setting your reading device to enable accessing e-books from outside your region, but I've also sought the opinion of a lawyer (I won't name the source, because they stress it's their personal opinion and not formal legal advice), who says that this may constitute fraud. I've presented their complete assessment as an appendix at the end of the post.* 15: If it's not out now as an e-book, I'd like to know when it will be. A list of forthcoming titles somewhere, anywhere, would be excellent. 16: E-books are still treated as an afterthought by many publishers. The design and navigation are often all over the place. I love the e-edition of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine beyond all reason, but does anyone there even know that the little description of each story that's meant to go above the title (and often ends with 'as you'll find out in...') goes below it in the e-book version? And the sheer hoo-hah of downloading it edition by edition from Fictionwise (if you have a Kindle, you can subscribe) is only made worthwhile by the sheer quality of the magazine itself. And don't get me started, in terms of novels, on texts that slip between pages, tables of contents that don't work, etc. 17: The e-book market is still the wild west. Having paid what I see as a fair price (around £10) as an advance order for The Quantum Thief on Amazon Kindle (very much my store of choice, considering iBooks' high prices, narrow selection and bad layout, and yes, I do wish we had Nook in Britain), I was staggered to see it go up to nearer £15 on the day of release (as expected) but then drop to around £6 a day later! (I've heard this was down to Amazon, before the agency model came into play.) If e-books are going to make up a majority of the market, then legal e-book customers should feel the same sense of security that those who buy physical books do, not like we're trying out version 0.1. 18: Online stores continuing to list free and very low price titles alongside mainstream titles is another way in which e-book customers are made to feel like they're lab rats. It emphasises hugely that price is overwhelmingly the most powerful factor when buying e-books (which is not the case in physical bookstores), and that no edition is cool enough to counter that (in a physical bookstore, nice new Jane Austens do better than cheapo out-of-copyright-label editions). But it also means that right next to our list of priced SF e-books, we can see that in with a bullet at number two in the free SF top twenty (behind, of course, Frankenstein), is Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton's account of his 1914-1917 expedition to Antarctica. (Why is that SF? What did he find?!) If it's a mistake, it's one that's been hanging around, untended to, for several months now. Even if it's correct, this is us browsing a musty second hand shop, not being cutting edge consumers in a new medium. I genuinely admire the pluck of self-published writers like Barry Nugent, whose excellent adventure in taking his Fallen Heroes to number one on the Kindle Contemporary Fantasy chart is described here. And mainstream SF writers like Gary Gibson have also benefited and found a new audience from having a low price point set for their back catalogue. But I would say that, instances like those guys apart, a low price is no guarantee of quality. We're not selling this stuff by the yard. And the way these charts are set up (unlike for instance the pop music charts, where a minimum sale price is set for a single to qualify) makes it look like we are. It's brilliant that new authors now have more ways to get audience attention. It's not so brilliant in the case of Captain Shackleton. 19: I do think the market will sort a lot of this stuff out in the next few years, as it has for digital music. I think that punishing authors for prices set by their publishers (with low star reviews on Amazon, for instance) is wrong. Some publishers (I won't name them here because I don't want to favour one over another) have set a low price point for new e-books and are thus influencing what the market will become. I'll continue to hold out and only buy new fiction for myself in e-book editions. I just hope that publishing and distribution catches up with the desire and enthusiasm of the market, and that illegal downloaders don't destroy the relationship between the two. Phew. Maybe I should write about unicorns and pixies next? Actually, there's another potentially turbulent one in the last two of the Twelve Blogs. Why do I do this to myself? Until tomorrow, Cheerio! *For those of a legal disposition, here's the full text of what that lawyer told me: I have recently been asked a question about some of the issues arising from ebooks, and in particular Amazon's Kindle. The question arises from the fact that some books are either cheaper on the Amazon.com Kindle store than they are on the one at Amazon.co.uk, or are not available in the UK store at all. For instance, the latest book by Bret Easton Ellis, 'Imperial Bedrooms', is £9.98 for Kindle in the UK, but only $9.99 (about £7) in the US store, while Ellis' first novel, 'Less than Zero', is only available in the US. To quote the question: "If I create a US Amazon Kindle account for myself, and lie by giving a real US address that I have nothing to do with (such as the British embassy in NY), in order to download US ebooks, or do the same with iTunes for US TV shows, am I committing an actual crime?" Now to be honest I am not entirely sure that this would work, either because you might need a valid credit-card billing address in the USA, or that Amazon might look at where you are, or appear to be, connecting from. But assuming that these were not problems, or were circumvented, and thatsomeone (let's call him X) did manage to buy a book from the US Kindle store and save some money (£3 in my example above), then my legal analysis is as follows. Firstly, X has in principle committed an offence under s.1 Fraud Act 2006. This provides that: (1) A person is guilty of fraud if he is in breach of any of the sections listed in subsection (2) (which provide for different ways of committing the offence). (2) The sections are— (a) section 2 (fraud by false representation), [...] Turning to s.2, this defines fraud by false representation as follows: (1) A person is in breach of this section if he— (a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and (b) intends, by making the representation— (i) to make a gain for himself or another, or (ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss. (2) A representation is false if— (a) it is untrue or misleading, and (b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading. (3) "Representation" means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of— (a) the person making the representation, or (b) any other person. (4) A representation may be express or implied. (5) For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention). By supplying a US address X has implied (s.2(4)) that as a matter of fact he lives in the USA (s.2(3)) and this is untrue (s.2(2)(a)) and he knows it is untrue (s.2(2)(b)). It does not matter that he made it to Amazon's online purchase system rather than a human (s.2(5)). So X has made a false representation, but has he made a fraudulent representation under s.2(1)? For this to be made out, the false representation has to have been made dishonestly (s.2(1)(a)) and there must be the intent to make a gain for himself (s.2(1)(b)(i)) or expose another to loss (s.2(1)(b)(ii)). Taking these last points in reverse order, it is certainly plausible that X has caused Amazon to lose £3 in revenue. This could be arguable on the grounds of whether it is one single entity that has suffered the loss, although then one might argue that X has diverted a sale away from Amazon UK by misrepresentation. It is more certain that X has made a gain for himself, in that he has £3 more than he otherwise would have. As to dishonesty, the test is that of R v Ghosh [1982] QB 1053: (i) Did the accused act dishonestly by the standards of an ordinary and honest person? (ii) Did the accused realise that such conduct was dishonest? < | ||
| TV Choice: Festive look at Top Gear, Doctor Who and more (part 1) - Get Bracknell Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:37 PM PST
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| Talk of the Town Doctors assistant is looking for a geek - Scotsman Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:12 PM PST
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| Katherine Jenkins interview - Telegraph.co.uk Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:48 PM PST
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| Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:37 PM PST More festive than mulled wine, roast chestnuts and keeping the receipt Matt Smith has been ho ho ho-ing to the Sunday Mercury sharing his zeal for the Christmas special, A Christmas Carol. Smith joined with the rest of the world in praising Steven Moffat's all-powerful imagination:
As far as loving Christmas Smith certainly gives the Doctor a run for his money, revelling his Christmas Day plans and the awkwardness of watching the Tenth Doctor bow out last year:
A Christmas Carol sees the Doctor taking Amy and Rory on a Honeymoon spaceship cruise only for the ship to stranded with only the assistance of a miser, Kazran Sardick (Sir Michael Gambon), standing between the Doctor and saving the crew of the ship. Smith was full of nothing but praise for his esteemed co-star:
A Christmas Carol will air Christmas Day on BBC 1 at 6pm (via Sunday Mercury) | ||
| December Podcast 004 - 22 December 2010 Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:21 PM PST It's nearly Xmas... And Nick Briggs eats a mince pie for the first time! Last week's team is still here... David Richardson, Paul Spragg, Rob Shearman and John Banks preview upcoming releases for 2011. John Banks looks at his list of productions again... but struggles to remember anything about them. Rob continues to get excited by John's Russian accent, talks about his new books and admits he's scared of Northerners. But it's all perfectly healthy and inoffensive... honestly. And there are clips, naturally. And there's a new competition. WARNING! This podcast is too long again... but it is Xmas, isn't it? Download Podcast Here |
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