Speculation Warning - Minor Spoliers - 71 Hour Ahmed

Quinn wrote:

> Well, let's see. I said speculation in the title. I placed speculation
> space at the top. And I included a fairly lawyerly (I am a lawyer)
> disclaimer as well. And as speculation goes, it was pretty mild. And
> folks are still climbing on me. Sigh. I think you are giving Pterry a
> lot less credit than he is due.

You are missing the point. PTerry is trying to avoid not the actual
stealing of ideas - he has far too many ideas of his own to need that -
but the *accusation* of stealing ideas. Unlike the courts, the press
have a "guilty until proved innocent" approach to this sort of thing. If
a speculative idea is posted in a forum which PTerry is known to read
and it appears in a book, somebody somewhere will accuse him of having
nicked it. The papers love an "expose" of the famous. "Successful author
steals ideas" is too good a story to miss. Of course, PTerry could chase
it up and possibly get the story withdrawn and apologised for (in small
print). But that would be a lot of hassle that he could do without, and
even when a story is withdrawn some mud sticks.

Your disclaimer just shows how much you miss the point. To the
non-lawyer, anything which involves dealings with lawyers is an evil.
The very fact that your disclaimer might be thought necessary says that
it shouldn't be posted.

PTerry has many calls on his time. If he sees the Usenet groups as
places where he has to tiptoe around speculation, he will decide his
time is better spent elsewhere. We would like him here, so we would like
him *not* to have to keep his eyes open and his guard up against
(unjustified) accusations of stealing/borrowing/being given ideas,

On 29 Dec 2007, 11:57, Len Oil <len....TakeThisOut@lenoil.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Dave Adalian wrote:
> > "Len Oil" <len....TakeThisOut@lenoil.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:fl425t$aqb$1$830fa795@news.demon.co.uk...
> >> Dave Adalian wrote:
> >>> Please yourself.  I can certainly understand why you would want to keep
> >>> the alt.X.pratchett groups "pure," but I'll go with Pterry as the last
> >>> word on the subject.  So, until he says it is something we should worry
> >>> about, I'm not going to worry about it.  Besides, who's got time to spend
> >>> on things like that?
> >> I don't know where you get the idea that (to quote your reply to Reader)
> >> "Pterry had said it was OK to do so"...
>
> >> He may have said that it's not unexpected that we do, but you seem to have
> >> missed a full two paragraphs of Reasons To Not Do It:
>
> >> "Of course, it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to suggest that a
> >> couple may have kids. But, despite everything, RSN someone is going to
> >> plonk down some theme or situation which is right in the *heart* of a
> >> story that I'm planning. I do not want to end up faced with a public
> >> accusation of plagiarism or theft; the fact that it might well have no
> >> legal foundation is beside the point. You don't have to be hugely
> >> imaginative to see that this could be damaging in other ways."
>
> >> "I've tried to take the view that if people post ideas to afp then it's
> >> *their* problem, but reality suggests that this attitude wouldn't prevent
> >> trouble. [...]  A meaty suggestion that I'd nicked an idea from afp would
> >> rumble on for months and turn up in other places, and life is too damn
> >> short."
>
> >> (And while I'm not going to bother with the more topical reason to
> >> consider those last few words /particularly/ poignant, because that would
> >> be morbid, it's enough to consider that it's the best part of a decade
> >> later and thus the best part of a decade has slipped away from his
> >> pre-fated lifespan in the meantime /regardless/ of our hopes or fears
> >> based upon current knowledge...)
>
> >> But please, don't spend time worrying about it, if you are also prone not
> >> to worry about making a cursory check for traffic when crossing the road,
> >> that your parachute is on your back before you jump from the aeroplane or
> >> that you have ignited the gas fire properly next time you turn it on.  Was
> >> that hyperbole?  Possibly, but a measured amount of consideration is
> >> always useful, and caution in the area of speculation is hardly an
> >> inconvenience to anyone.
>
> > Clearly, this is something you've spent a prodigious amount of time
> > considering.
>
> No, I just read past the first sentence.
>
> >       [....]  Where I got that Pterry said it was OK was when he said, "It
> > would be ridiculous to expect a fan group not to speculate about future
> > events on DW -- it's a fundamental part of fanac."
>
> "...I do not want to end up with..."  "...that [...] it might have no
> legal foundation is beside the point..." "...this could be damaging in
> other ways."  "I've tried [...] but reality suggests that this attitude
> wouldn't prevent trouble..."  "...would rumble on for months and turn up
> in other places..."
>
> And above all: "..._life is to damn short_."  My emphasis, with all due
> apologies.
>
> I have another advantage, in that while I wasn't here in '99 (this
> incarnation arrived a couple of years later) I've seen this discussed
> since, though never quite with the same result, as the explanations then
> were obviously far better than my attempt, getting an "Ooops, sorry!"
> response rather than a protracted discussion under an uncomfortably
> titled Subject that's sure to scare PTerry back out of the group (or at
> least prevent him from coming to this thread and setting us /all/
> straight on our misconceptions) should he decide to pop in and see it.
> (I haven't bothered to try to change the subject more than once, you'll
> notice.)
>
> What I /really/ wanted to give to the group, as soon as this discussion
> was broached, was the link to the "I would have enjoyed writing /that/
> story" post that followed up on someone's indiscretion in suggesting a
> link between Susan Sto Helit and a certain other fictional character
> that would have made a decent (and, at least at the premise level,
> /fairly obvious/) parody which it sounds like the man himself had in
> mind but hadn't solidified yet.  It will now (almost 100% certainly)
> never happen.
>

What you want is this one: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.books.pratchett/msg/709dcba09a4a7ec1

Google on this group for "Uberwald" and "Sound of Music".

Cheers,
Nigel.