Clark Ashton Smith—Ultimate Weird Tales Collection—133 Stories for 1.99 (Amazon/B&N)

[rogerVA]

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Weird...7888172&sr=1-3

133 Weird Tales-era works of horror, science fiction and fantasy have been gathered here into one volume, all written by Clark Ashton Smith, who was the third member of the literary circle that included authors Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. Excluding only fragmentary notes, excerpts and synopses he never finished during his lifetime, this is perhaps the largest single collection of all his published and unpublished fiction.

I was pleasantly floored to notice this on Amazon today. C.A.S. is one of our all-time greatest fantasists, his works are a unique experience. One of the famed Weird Tales trio (along with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard), in my opinion his writings climb far above and beyond what they were capable of. I have his complete fiction, complete poetry, and essays and letters in book form, and I'm very happy to now have all or most of his tales available on my Kindle.

I haven't dug deep in this yet and can't attest to the accuracy of the text. Happily, the table of contents is active/clickable. The stories are arranged alphabetically on the TOC.

[CWatkinsNash]

Also available at same price at B&N.

UPDATE: As of 2/17, the B&N price is back up to 2.99.

[DMcCunney]

Hmmmm. I think I know where the stories in this collection came from: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/

The question is whether this collection was authorized by the Smith estate.
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Dennis

[rogerVA]

I assumed Amazon would be somewhat thorough checking out the rights and their availability before offering something for sale... am I giving them too much credit here?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rogerVA

I assumed Amazon would be somewhat thorough checking out the rights and their availability before offering something for sale... am I giving them too much credit here?

Unfortunately, yes.

There was already a publicized case of an indie publisher offering a Kindle edition of George Orwell's 1984 that it had no right to offer. Amazon took it down when it was informed of infringement.

Unfortunately, an innocent student had bought a copy and was using it for schoolwork. When Amazon removed it on their end, it also removed it from his Kindle the next time he synced with Amazon, and removed the notes he had been taking on the book that were stored on his Kindle, because they were associated with the volume. He was not happy, and it became a major flap, and black eye for Amazon.

Amazon encourages small and indie publishers to produce Kindle editions and sell them through Amazon, so there are a plethora of public domain titles offered that way, and some titles that probably shouldn't be up, because the publishers don't have the rights to offer them.

But in Amazon's defense, I'm not sure it would be possible to vet every offering like this to insure it was legal. (It would certainly be time consuming and expensive, and make it far less attractive for Amazon to court small and indie publishers in the first place.) If it's not, and the rights holder becomes aware of infringement and complains, Amazon simply takes it down, and points at whoever offered it illegally.

This collection might well be legal. I don't know. I just happen to know where the stories probably came from if it isn't, and have a query off to the admin of the CAS site to see if he's aware of it.
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Dennis

[koland]

They didn't actually remove the notes (those are in a text file, shared for all notes taken). And his professor had told him he could not use that edition for the class, so it was a convenience issue (not that it would stop any attorney to argue incorrect facts or exaggerate claims). The bigger issue was whether or not amazon was a publisher or content provider - claiming to be protected in the same manner as an ISP would seem more advantageous, but that isn't the route Amazon has taken. Still, even though they do check things out, copyrights can be so muddled as to be nearly impossible to determine in some cases.

For these, weren't most printed in magazines (and thus have fairly short copyright)?

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by koland

For these, weren't most printed in magazines (and thus have fairly short copyright)?

Most of these were written post-1923, so they are still under copyright regardless of whether or not they were published in magazines. Rights for those are controlled by his estate. There are a few that have most likely passed into Public Domain, but not very many.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by koland

They didn't actually remove the notes (those are in a text file, shared for all notes taken). And his professor had told him he could not use that edition for the class, so it was a convenience issue (not that it would stop any attorney to argue incorrect facts or exaggerate claims). The bigger issue was whether or not amazon was a publisher or content provider - claiming to be protected in the same manner as an ISP would seem more advantageous, but that isn't the route Amazon has taken. Still, even though they do check things out, copyrights can be so muddled as to be nearly impossible to determine in some cases.

Thanks for the clarification, and agreed. I don't expect Amazon to vet the rights on everything they sell. They can't. They are at the mercy of the vendor whose goods they are selling.

For these, weren't most printed in magazines (and thus have fairly short copyright)?

In magazines originally, and in book collections next. While magazines bought rights, back then those rights had a time limit, and had to be renewed. A lot of magazine fiction didn't get renewed and lapsed into the public domain while the book versions did get renewed and did not lapse. The site I mentioned earlier has permission from Smith's estate and from Arkham House (who published collections as books) to host the material in electronic form for non-profit purposes, so presumably somebody currently holds rights on the material.

The question is whether whoever issued the Kindle and nook editions actually dealt with the rights holder and negotiated the rights to offer these volumes. I don't know.
______
Dennis

[rogerVA]

Again, I was surprised to see this offered (and very pleased). I know that various collections of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard are offered by multiple publishers, too, for cheap. These three were published in similar (or the same) places, were reprinted by Arkham House, and were largely contemporaries. I'll be curious to hear back. And I do visit the Eldritch Dark forums, a great resource.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rogerVA

Again, I was surprised to see this offered (and very pleased). I know that various collections of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard are offered by multiple publishers, too, for cheap. These three were published in similar (or the same) places, were reprinted by Arkham House, and were largely contemporaries. I'll be curious to hear back. And I do visit the Eldritch Dark forums, a great resource.

Oh, I'm pleased, too. Of the three, I think I prefer Smith to Lovecraft and Howard, and I'm happy to see his stuff kept alive. I have an electronic complete CAS collection someone had put together from the material on the Eldritch Dark, but the rights are equally unclear - I don't think the chap who runs the Eldritch Dark was asked about using the stories. The one I have was a labor of love offered free of charge, so non-commercial, but permissions would still have been required.
______
Dennis

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by koland

They didn't actually remove the notes (those are in a text file, shared for all notes taken). And his professor had told him he could not use that edition for the class, so it was a convenience issue (not that it would stop any attorney to argue incorrect facts or exaggerate claims). The bigger issue was whether or not amazon was a publisher or content provider - claiming to be protected in the same manner as an ISP would seem more advantageous, but that isn't the route Amazon has taken.

So you would have no problem with Amazon if they sent goons to your house to pull the books off your shelves, so long as they left you a check?

I wish I could buy this ... it's the closest any ebook has come to tempting me to break my resolution never to buy a DRM-locked ebook. So very close....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

So you would have no problem with Amazon if they sent goons to your house to pull the books off your shelves, so long as they left you a check?

This is not a bash Amazon thread...
______
Dennis

[koland]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

So you would have no problem with Amazon if they sent goons to your house to pull the books off your shelves, so long as they left you a check?

I wish I could buy this ... it's the closest any ebook has come to tempting me to break my resolution never to buy a DRM-locked ebook. So very close....

Generally, a takedown notice requires removal from ALL databases -- which is what Amazon got and did. The guy got a refund (and still had his notes). Better than you generally get if the cops bust a theft ring and identify you as one of those that received stolen goods (which is, actually, a crime, although generally not prosecuted).

What Amazon did was in no way similar to bashing down my door and removing books at random; had they sold me illegally published books and police notified them as such, followed by the police show up to ask for the books, I imagine I'd hand them over (and be glad of a refund). Especially if I knew they were stolen in the first place (or should have).

It does look as though this "publisher" has decided to add DRM, though -- almost laughable for what he has grabbed as purportedly public domain (which would be the only reason he is able to publish it, as I suspect the price would be considerably higher if rights had been obtained, assuming they are required for these particular stories ... it's likely the rights have lapsed due to the magazines failing to renew, but it would take a bit of research to determine that).

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by koland

It does look as though this "publisher" has decided to add DRM, though -- almost laughable for what he has grabbed as purportedly public domain (which would be the only reason he is able to publish it, as I suspect the price would be considerably higher if rights had been obtained, assuming they are required for these particular stories ... it's likely the rights have lapsed due to the magazines failing to renew, but it would take a bit of research to determine that).

Because I'm nosy, I checked them out. The most vaunted author on the Trilogus site, who will also be the artist on the first Trilogus music CD, actually owns the Trilogus web site. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. I'm just always irked when someone creates a publishing company to publish themselves and then tries to hide it. If they are honest about it, it doesn't bother me at all. It can be a great way for a few authors to get together and maybe start something awesome. The only problem is that very few authors make really good publishers. In this case, they are trying to be a media company - books, music, movies. They are soliciting "quality submissions" on the site.

According to the site, they only sell on Amazon, but I can see they have stuff on B&N, and they also have a few things on Smashwords. In fact, the copy I got from B&N is a modified Smashwords version - it has the "if you want to share buy more copies on Smashwords" message in it - although it is no longer for sale on Smashwords.

Also, this particular book doesn't have a publisher listed on Amazon - which again makes me wonder about the publishing rights. They are listed as publisher on their other books that I checked, but not this one.

What? I said I was nosy.

EDITED to avoid starting a new post - There are renewals on file for some of CAS's work, and one of those renewals was for a volume containing some of these stories. I am NOT looking them all up, but it seems to be more than a few. So, at least some of them are still under copyright: 28 year term + 47 year renewal + 20 year auto extension, which puts some of them into the mid-to-late 2020's before copyright expires.

[koland]

Thanks for the work. Guess I'll pass it up and wait for an authorized edition (then complain that I can't afford it! ).