I see writers are finding fake books attributed to them for sale on Amazon - again. If this happens to you and you're a member of The Society of Authors or your local equivalent, let them know at once. Writers' organisations can get through to key Amazon people direct and the more evidence they have of a problem, the more likely they'll get it resolved.
A year or so back I treated myself to an original of a @tomgauld cartoon, and each time I look at it (above my desk) it still makes me smile.... so I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy!
Here Justine Bateman’s thread lays out a case for why AI in entertainment must be addressed now, protections created or writers, actors and directors may not have a profession or career at all very soon. Writers Guild (WGA), SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) are fighting for our professions to exist at all.
Screenshot of tweets by @JustineBateman • 2h Your digital image can be triple and quadruple booked, so that bodes well for a 10 percenter. 4/ 2. Films customized for a viewer, based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image "bought out" to be used in anything at all. 5/ 3. Films "ordered up" by the viewer. For example, " want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it." 6/ 4. Viewers getting digitally scanned themselves, and paying extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. 7/
Screenshot of tweets by @JustineBateman 5. Licensing deals made with studios so that viewers can order up older films like STAR WARS and put their face on Luke Skywalker's body and their ex-wife's face on Darth Vader's body, etc. 8/ 6. Training an Al program on an older hits TV series, and creating an additional season. FAMILY TIES, for example, has 167 episodes. An Al program could easily be trained on this, and create an eighth season. We only shot seven. 9/ Al has to be addressed now or never. I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we don't make strong rules now, they simply won't notice if we strike in three years, because at that point they won't need us. 10/end Addendum: Actors, you must have iron-clad protection against the Al use of your image and voice in the SAG MBA or your profession is finished. Demand it from @sagaftra and do not accept any AMPTP proposal that does not have it.
Hmm, only 26 followers after being on Mastodon since November 2022? Ok, here is my intro again: (ex) Full stack web developer with Bread and Roses Creative, full time artist (now) and food critic (currently) with Chuck Eats KC. Kansas City-based web dev since the dawn of browsers (1995). Focus these days is one creative stuff: writing, food criticism, photography, streaming, art, and making fun videos.#Artists#Intros#Writers#FoodCritics#Fediverse#WebDev
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When you watch a movie or TV show that really grabs you, often people will place all the credit on the #acting. And though good acting is a very important part of the equation, good #writing is just as much a part of it, if not more so. Unfortunately, the #Hollywood system doesn't seem to value writing as much as they value acting talent and "the right look" and it shows. I stand with the #WGA and I hope they get a fair shake.
As an aside, "reality TV" was a direct result of a #writers#strike. Studios found a formula that didn't require writers and unfortunately it worked. If the current strike is prolonged, I would encourage people to NOT watch any sort of reality or contest-style content that may pop up. The world needs more good stories and less trash.
(Edited to remove what I learned was an incorrect reference to the show "Survivor")
We've been housesitting on and off for 5 years now. And along with pets, we care for a bunch of old, and often very eccentric, houses with little quirks that we've learned to acclimatise to quickly.
Which is why, when a lovely British crime fiction author drove up to meet us in person for the first time yesterday and needed to use the loo, we directed him upstairs and forgot to tell him "Whatever you do, DO NOT pull the toilet door fully shut or you'll be trapped in there for all eternity."
So... anyway... Last night, we locked a famous British crime fiction author, who we'd just met, in the loo and had to completely dismantle the door...
Being British and of the stiff upper lip variety, he did not yell or try and beat the door down.
In fact, it took me looking at the clock after THIRTY FREAKIN' MINUTES and saying "He's been a little while--OH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK" at the top of my voice and sprinting to the top of the stairs to hear the odd plaintive rattle, while Tony went to find a screwdriver.
I would like to state categorically, that we did not deliberately try and lock a beloved British author in our bathroom. It's the house's fault. Not ours. Honestly. I haven't even read Stephen King's Misery the whole way through!
(I'm not really sure he believed us, but he let us buy him dinner at the pub to make up for it, so that's okay I guess.)
Hello #Mastodon, I am seeking comments from the community to include in my next newsletter about #Google's change in their privacy policy. (They now say that anything you post online will be used to train their AI models.)
I am especially interested of thoughts from #writers and #artists.
How do you feel about this move? What do you think about placing your content behind a wall to protect it? And will this change how you post online in the future?
Jewish #writers & other artists and thinkers write an open letter on how criticism of Israel is not antisemitism: “we find this rhetorical tactic antithetical to Jewish values, which teach us to repair the world, question authority, and champion the oppressed over the oppressor.” They also liken it to an “an insidious gagging of #FreeSpeech.”
Writing is just thinking your work is amazing and then thinking it’s terrible and going back and forth between both extremes until you finally have to submit, at which point you’ve spent so much time staring at the words that you have no idea if any of it is good or bad at all
I'm putting together a #creativewriting coaching business and I need guinea pigs.
For #FREE I will fully critique any story up to 10,000 words. In return, all I ask is for a testimonial for my website. Message me.
I have a BA in English lit, an MFA in playwriting, experience working in theater. I've had plays and books produced and published respectively. I even wrote freelance erotica.
"The modestly funded West Haven Library has spent more than $12,000 over the last three years to lease just 276 additional digital titles beyond what patrons can access through a consortium of public libraries. Eighty-four of those books are no longer available. If that same amount had been spent on paper books, it would have covered about 800 titles."
🔥 Gillian Brockell:
MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud,’ author finds
“I think its historic reverberations are huge,” Eig told The Washington Post. “We’ve been teaching people for decades, for generations, that King had this harsh criticism of Malcolm X, and it’s just not true.”
Because of the severity of King’s criticism, it has been repeated countless times, cast as a dividing line between King and Malcolm X.
OC Creatives of all kinds: check out this delightful list with dozens of FOSS creative tools for artists, photographers, film makers, game devs, musicians, and more! (codeberg.org)
A curated list of delightful tools for digital creatives in a variety of mediums.