FutureTense

The extension of copyright was pushed through by well heeled conglomerates who marketed the change to the American public as necessary to provide proper compensation to the creators. This line was largely swallowed, hook line and sinker by industry groups supposed to defend and represent creators, such as SFWA.

Honestly, they should have known better.

What actually happened is……the average creator is no better off. Can most musicians expect people to purchase their CD two or three decades after the tour ended? Realistically, how many writers keep their book in print for their lifetimes, plus seventy years?

The media conglomerates have been the big beneficiaries of the change. Because contract law currently allows copyright to be transferred, copyright extension, is, in fact, working against the average artist. The extension allows a large company to make money over a longer period, raising the stakes and encouraging draconian “surrender all rights” style contracts. These “all rights” contracts, such as the AOL-Time-Warner contract being fought by the National Writer’s Union, were rare 10 years ago but are almost industry standard now.

It’s been three months since I posted my novel online for the world to read for free, with a tip jar as compensation medium. I think we have enough data now to tell how well it might work for other artists.

Mid-list authors are under attack as a result of the consolidation in the publishing world and the tight focus on a financial bottom line.

Where do you turn to keep your old publications alive and simmering in the public eye? How do you generate and document the exposure necessary to prod a timid editor into accepting a borderline work?

This is one author’s experiment–generally positive–in the world of online publishing. The comments (further down the page) are also very revealing.

We introduce the Street Performer Protocol, an electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work be put in the public domain. This protocol has the potential to fund alternative or “marginal” works.

“The Internet will free us!” was the call of Napster users every where…And, truly, the Internet offers the first real opportunity to break the monopoly that major labels hold in music, and the major publishers hold in the world of text.

Traditionally, the “majors” controlled access to financing, production and distribution. These days, you can dupe a CD for less than a dime. Set up costs are almost nil, so you don’t have to produce in large numbers.

Advantage one taken from the “majors.”

But the still have a lock on financing creative projects. If the data economy is ever to break the stranglehold, we will need a mechanism that provides a financial incentive for the creative team to produce works of merit. Thus, The Street Performer Protocol.

A treatment is a marketing tool, a dramatization of the plot outline and synopsis designed to sell a novel or screenplay.

While including all the elements of the plot outline and the synopsis, the treatment focuses on the emotional reactions of the characters in the story to provide an emotionally satisfying experience for the audience, in this case an agent or editor (for a novel), or a producer or studio executive (for a screenplay).

A synopsis is a view of the story, presented in narrative form. It is usually developed from an outline, and is more elaborate.

The synopsis focuses on action, presenting the objectives, subgoals, obstacles, events, deeds and plot in a simple easy to read format.

A scene is a unit of action: an obstacle, the plan the protagonist has to overcome the obstacle, the events that complicate the protgonists efforts to overcome the obstacle, her success or failure, leading to further complication.

A scene can be thought of as its own story in minature: complete with rising tension, mini-climax and a resolution which is not final, but leads to more complications as the protagonist continues to pursue the primary objective of the narrative.

An outline of the plot consists of one sentence for each scene, describing the major obstacle of that scene and the action taken by the protagonist to overcoming that obstacle.

Plot climax is the final event concerning the dramatic objective pusued by the main character, or the main character and the antagonist.

Story climax is the final choice made by the protagonist that reveals his or her true values and code of behavior.

Exposition establishes setting or provides information important to the reader’s understanding of the plot.

“Plot” is the series of event that happen to the main character.

“Story” is the series of actions undertaken by the main character in pursuit of a primary objective.