Mastodawn

The Internet is Crack Jul 29, 2025

📚 “Computers shouldn’t steal.” Daniel Kraus shares why AI scraping books is fundamentally different from human inspiration.

🎙 Full episode: Angel Down, AI, the internet, and the creative process.

🎧 Listen here: https://youtu.be/kC6zTFstg98

#AIethics #WritersRights #Storytelling #TheInternetIsCrack #PodcastClip #Podcast #Danielkraus #AI

Aliyesha.com Feb 26, 2025

उत्तराखण्ड सरकार का साहित्यिक पुरस्कार विवादों में।

https://aliyesha.com/sub/articles/news/display/uk_uttarakhand_govt_literary_award_controversy

#uttarakhand #dehradun #india #news #press #LiteraryAward #AwardControversy #CasteBias #WritersRights #LiteraryJustice #literature

Enjoy tracker free reading with us. #privacy #privacymatters

देहरादून: उत्तराखण्ड सरकार का साहित्यिक पुरस्कार विवादों में।

उत्तराखण्ड राज्य सरकार जब भी राज्यस्तरीय पुरस्कारों का चयन करती है, वे हमेशा की तरह विवादों में रहते हैं।

Aliyesha

Angela Yuriko Smith Feb 4, 2025

📢 Big news for authors! The Authors Guild just launched Human Authored, a certification to protect authentic, human-created literature. Stay ahead in the AI era & support real writers. Learn more & get certified! ✍️📖

🔗https://authorsguild.org/human-authored/

#Authortunities #HumanAuthored #WritersRights #PublishingNews #AuthorsGuild #AuthenticWriting

Human Authored Certification - The Authors Guild

Human Authored is a project of the Authors Guild that allows an author to certify that their book is created by a human. “Human Authored” means that the text of the book was written by a human and not generated […]

The Authors Guild

J. Steven York May 4, 2023

People may wonder why I've been posting about the #WGAStrike2023 when I'm not a member of the Writer's Guild. (I've dabbled around that world, especially in my 20s, but never got in the WGA.) I do know lots of WGA folks, but mainly it's that I, in my old age, am getting sick and tired of how our society treats writers. It's made me generally militant.
Despite how much writers contribute to our world, IMHO they're consistently undervalued, underpaid, undervalued, and generally pissed on by everyone from media billionaires to that YouTuber with three followers and "Rulz!" in their user name.
Hollywood has long relegated writers to the very bottom of the pecking order (insert the joke about the actor so dumb they slept with the writer, here). And some days I'd like to go back in time to smother the person who coined "auteur theory" in their cradle. (TV writers have gained more power in recent years, but much of the current strike is about how they've had their financial legs cut out from under them by streaming and other new technology.)
But they're not alone. Traditional publishing, no matter how much money they've made, have always pocketed most of it and given a pittance to writers. Even best-sellers making a fortune are just receiving a sliver of a much, much, bigger fortune. And now their contracts have become so draconian that most novelists, which being paid even less, are effectively signing alway all rights to their work forever. The system there is broken, and there's never been a unions to protect the people who pour sweat and blood into writing the books you love, and I suspect there never will be. That makes me want to support the WGA just by proxy.
And look, readers and audiences, you don't get off free and clear either. People love, and will crawl across broken glass for, their familiar, beloved, and traditional deliverers of books, indie bookstores and libraries especially (and well they should, not saying otherwise). But at the same time, they can't seem to give two shits or a single thought to the working writers who filled all those books with words, facts, journalism, facts, characters, and stories. Very often they applaud changes that would benefit the book deliverers on the backs of the people that actually wrote them (as though that's the first and only place the money could come from). And they've been slow to embrace things like indie publishing, which offer writers more control and give them potentially a much better cut of the book price.
What I'm saying is, when you lend or borrow a book (be in from a friend, a library, or a pirate site) the author generally gets NOTHING.
I'd like a culture where you'd try to correct that disparity if you can afford it. You tip your barista or wait-person. Why don't you tip your author?
If you enjoyed their book, BUY the next in the series. See if they have a Patreon, a web store, or a Kickstarter you can directly support. Support their indie pubs.
I'd like a culture where, if you can't try these things, you could at least feel a little bad about it for a few seconds before reading your next borrowed book. (And if costs nothing to post a review, click a star rating, or make a post on social plugging a book or author you enjoyed. That at least helps.)
That's why I support the #WGA, just like I support working writers everywhere. That's why I think you should do. Writers have given you a lot. I'm asking you to open your eyes and give a little back. Very few writers are rich. Traditional publishing has allowed very few to have long careers. Most have no benefits and little security.
Help them when you can. Speak up for them. Show them some care and sympathy. Maybe a little love.
It's the least you can do.

#wgastrike2023 #writers #writing #books #booklovers #publishing #bookstores #fiction #libraries #wgacontract2023 #intellectualproperty #WritersRights

J. Steven York May 4, 2023

Another great #WGA picket sign, this one from bestselling novelist and Harry Bosch creator, Michael Connelly. (Borrowed from his account on Instagram)

#wgacontract2023 #wgastrike2023 #writers #writersrights #harrybosch #bosch