Science Fiction Writers of America election is a referendum on copyright craziness

Reacting to the news that Andrew Burt has announced that he will stand for president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, John Scalzi has posted a blistering rant explaining why Burt is unfit to serve. Burt was the only person who volunteered for the vice-president's role the last time around -- after having previously volunteered to run the SFWA anti-piracy effort, loaning himself SFWA's money to patent a bizarre ebook-degrading program, creating a snitch-line for readers to fink each other out with, and then issuing a bulk takedown notice on behalf of the Asimov estate and Robert Silverberg listing thousands of files that did not infringe either writer's copyright (the files merely had the word "Asimov" or "Silverberg" in them). Included in that last was one of my own books, which was posted with my permission, under a Creative Commons license (Burt later lied about the scope of his offense, repeatedly characterising his mistake as encompassing "only three" files, then vilified me for publicly complaining about his abuse of copyright law).

Scalzi does an excellent job of summing up Burt's failures as a writer, a SFWA volunteer, and a policy setter, and his rant is world-class, even if you don't care about politics in SFWA.

Which is to say that to a very large extent, SFWA’s entire last year has been spent dealing with the problems that Andrew Burt, during his tenure as SFWA vice president, has personally created. To be sure, he had help for at least part of it (he couldn’t have been elected onto the newly-formed copyright committee on his board vote alone), but at the end of the day, his bad actions were the ones that damaged public perception of SFWA, tore at the unity of the organization, and caused it to invest significant time and resources repairing the wounds Burt inflicted with his initial lack of care, and his subsequent, entirely self-serving drive to install himself into a chairmanship he had no business seeking.
The fact Burt wants to be president of SFWA after jamming the organization into a wall twice in the last year suggests to my mind either an Aspergian lack of cluefulness, or a grim, committed drive to prove that the Peter Principle is wrong, and that, indeed, one can rise beyond one’s level of incompetence, perchance to explore heretofore unknown, virgin realms of incompetence none have ever seen before. Alas toward the latter, SFWA would be chained to him and dragged along as he frisked about these new lands.
Burt’s lack of writing career and penchant for publicly immolating himself and SFWA have not gone unnoticed, which presents a third issue:
3. Andrew Burt’s Reputation in the Professional SF/F Community. Simply put: It’s bad.

Link

Other SFWA members have posted their own horrified reactions: Charles Coleman Finlay's The Secret Life of Walter Burty is an hilarious Thurber pastiche, with Burt as Walter Mitty:

"Quiet, man!" said Burty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-qwerty-pocketa-qwerty. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening keys. "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He scribbled a series of hasty apologies, shifting blame to the villainous enemies intent on ruining his brilliant investments. And then he wadded up the pages and shoved them in the mouths of everyone who spoke against him. "That will hold for about ten minutes," he shouted. "Get on with the loan!"
An accountant hurried over and whispered to the treasurer, who, surprisingly, looked like Burty would look if Burty were the treasurer, and Burty saw the man turn pale. "Due diligence has set in," said the treasurer nervously. "If you would take over, Burty?"
Burty looked at him and at the cowardly figures of the ordinary mortals who doubted his fiduciary genius. "Glad to," he said. "As you know, I'm a doctor."
They slipped him a blank check and . . .

And Stephanie Leary's done fine work translating Burt's campaign platform into plain speech:

I have a track record as a problem solver and in handling unexpected situations calmly.
I am the instigator of flame wars unprecedented even in SFWA’s long and contentious history. If someone disagrees with me, I quickly resort to personal attacks and attempt to bolster my credibility with specious publication credits and irrelevant remarks about my education. If I appear to be losing the argument, I will pick up my ball and go home.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Charlie Stross

Oskar, alas: while Cory is inestimably better qualified for the presidency of SFWA than Andrew Burt, I am afraid that he’s about the only person whose candidacy would be even more inflammatory.

A vocal subset of SFWA members (a faction that Andrew Burt walks in front of and claims to lead) see Cory as the AntiChrist, come to strip them of their immortal copyrights and cast them into the fiery pit of public domain immolation. (The facts of the matter have nothing to do with their beliefs, which are fiercely held and not informed by actual knowledge; as with so many fields, the less that is at stake, the hotter the passions that are aroused.)

In fact, right now a Doctorow candidacy would be about the only thing guaranteed to turn out the boneheads to vote for Burt. Luckily, Cory has better things to do with his time.
Irene Delse

Jeff (#6): Happily for the SFWA members, it needn’t turn into a Cory-or-Burt deathmatch, because there is another candidate: Russell Davis (SFWAâ€™s current Western Regional Director), whose platform is here:
http://community.livejournal.com/sfwa/43956.html

Plus, John Scalzi invited him to chat with the readers of his blog, under the post quoted above, and you can read his answers to their questions.
Oskar

Charlie Stross: Yeah, I figured something like that. It’s such a shame though, Cory has such fantastic ideas about the future of content ownership, and to have him in a position of leadership in such an organization would probably have a huge impact.

On the other hand, people like Burt are like king Canute, trying to order the tide to not come in (I love that parable). The future is inevitable.
Scalzi

Robotech_Master:

Indeed, it should be clear that specific concerns about Burt re: SFWA should not be read as a referendum on his life in general. People have spoken and do speak warmly of his work with nyx.net and with the online writing workshop Critters.

Irene Delse:

Indeed, Russell Davis has a good and cogent platform, and has done a bang-up job talking to the public about his plans for SFWA. He’s got my vote.
OM

…Ok, so from what I’ve been able to gather, Burt is a basement dweller who “qualified” for SFWA membership because he’s self-published a few novels that at least five suckers actuall by bought. Having gained said membership, he managed to move up in the ranks of the SWFA administration primarily because so few of the members wanted to take on the jobs he practically begged to be assigned to. Now he feels he’s “paid his dues” and believes he should now be handed the thrown, crown, scepter and Holy Hand Grenade to boot.

Sorry kids, but this is like a janitor at the White House claiming he’s qualified to become President simply because he’s taken out the trash for the past four (mis)administrations. You’d be better off with a stuffed dead bonobo with an erection than this chump…

Q: Cory, what would it take for me to write five SF novels and get them published so *I* could run for this office? God/Yahweh/Roddenberry knows I’d be more qualified to run this particular asylum…:-P
Dustin Driver

“The fact Burt wants to be president of SFWA after jamming the organization into a wall twice in the last year suggests to my mind either an Aspergian lack of cluefulness, or a grim, committed drive to prove that the Peter Principle is wrong, and that, indeed, one can rise beyond oneâ€™s level of incompetence, perchance to explore heretofore unknown, virgin realms of incompetence none have ever seen before.”

Them’s fightin’ words. Beautiful, hilarious, ingenious fightin’ words.
Charlie Stross

Jeff @15: becoming a published writer isn’t trivial, but it’s by no means hugely difficult.

That is, however, a far cry from earning your living as a writer — a very different business indeed, because rather than being about selling a handful of short stories, it involves the gritty work of bringing in paying commissions on a monthly basis and churning out prose of commercial or better quality year-in, year-out.

Having noted this, Absimliard @16 brings up the point that the skill set necessary to manage SFWA is not the same as the skill set required of a good writer. Very true. However, it is *essential* that the executives of SFWA, an organization established to represent writers, should have an understanding of the needs of writers. And while Andrew Burt arguably has the basic ability to get the minimal publication credits, he has impressed me profoundly with his lack of cluefulness about the needs of those of us *who are doing this job for a living*.

Finally: I would like to note that while many of Burt’s backers within SFWA are writers, his opponents largely consist of those writers aged 40 or under *who are doing it for a living*.
Jeff

Charles Stross said, “…see Cory as the AntiChrist.” No hyperbole there? Ha ha ha…(evil laughter). We’re all allowed to complain, but you have to eventually say that if you want to make things better, you have to do MORE than complain. Right?
Also, if it’s harder to become a published writer than a rocket scientist, I think the obvious question is why? I don’t think genre fiction needs to mean that much, not if we’re all in such a hurry to give the stuff away for free.
Church

The SFWA drama is my soap opera; I can’t get enough. Run, Burt, Run!

(I also just finished The Old Man’s War, thanks to Tor’s promo. Planning on getting Ghost Brigades this weekend.)
Jeff

Charles Stross is very helpful, thanks. I don’t understand the particulars of writing to make money, I just do it out of perverse habit. So the C.C. interests me for several reasons. I see published writers giving away stuff to promote themselves on the Tor site, and Stross’s and Cory’s. I don’t think this is a new concept in other markets and it can work. I think in today’s market you might have to work a little harder to promote your writing, especially in a smaller genre like sf&f (there are exceptions within the genre).
absimiliard

I’ll note that Andrew Burt’s qualifications for membership in SFWA have little to do with his qualifications to become President of SFWA.

The skills that a good writer make do not necessarily make for a good politician, nor for a knowledgeable techie, nor for many other professions.

Let’s not confuse what it takes to manage SFWA and mistake it for the same skill-set it takes to join SFWA. Even if he wrote the bare minimum stories over 5 decades ago and hadn’t even WANTED to write anything anymore he might be an excellent candidate for President of SFWA. (That he’s not a good candidate is totally unrelated to how good or bad a writer he is.)

(And let’s also try to keep the ad hominem attacks down too please. Just because we don’t agree with him doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person. Down that line of reasoning lie the crusades, the inquisition, and George W. Bush.)

-abs
OM

Q: What SF has Burt written? Because I can’t recall ever having read anything by him, much less having heard of him before the SFWA flap.
Cory Doctorow

From Scalzi’s piece: “By his own admission, in Burtâ€™s writing career, which goes back into the last century, heâ€™s produced five short stories that would be SFWA qualifying. His one novel was self-published (publisher: Techsoft. CEO of Techsoft: Andrew Burt) and has more Amazon reviews (seven) than sales registered by BookScan (five)”
Antinous

His website is a sobering reminder that not all geeks are cool, fun or sexy.
hellhead

Just thought I’d take a moment to say Old Man’s War is an amazing book.

Off topic I know, but… well, I’ve nothing to add.
Jeff

Just to continue. I’ve been a paying user of sff.net for years and I’ve experienced Burt as a nice, fair guy. But I’ve only had limited, brief interaction with him. I’ve picked up the impression over the years that the SFWA is more trouble than it’s worth. That’s probably easy to say, since I’m not a member, and for all I know it’s heaven on Earth for some.
Irene Delse

Don’t forget the link to the “Andrew Burt for president” parodic posters page, by the_flea_king:
http://the-flea-king.livejournal.com/330373.html
It’s the source of the sinking ship pic above. ;-)
James MacAulay

I’ve spent a lot of time reading BB posts over the past year or so, and I recall some of this SFWA stuff that’s referenced here. I decided to follow the link to Andrew Burt’s site from one of the first comments on this page, and I ended up reading through a bit of “his side of things” (regarding, for instance, the scribd.com thing from a while back.)

Following that link reminded me how important it is to be sceptical about what I read. Maybe this guy is just as awful as everyone excerpted in this post makes him out to be, maybe not. It “goes without saying” that the shrewd reader should balance their intake with contrasting points of view…but really, with however-many-hundreds of items in that feed reader, how often do we do that?

Personally, I tend not to go beyond the blog post and its accompanying links. I usually take things at face value unless it “sounds fishy” or if there’s a large and obvious potential for the writer’s emotions to skew the language and misrepresent things. I think that’s probably true for most of us.

I almost did the same thing with this post, and it resulted in a very particular image in my mind of Andrew Burt as a pompous, myopically-DRM-loving dinosaur (piled on the previous hazy-but-similar image I had from my memories of previous BB posts about him). According to Burt, however, he “hates” DRM, “loves” Creative Commons (but doesn’t seem convinced of its long-term viability for authors wishing to make a living), and thinks that the current length of copyright term is too long:

Aburt on Copyright

Burt’s side of the story regarding past issues is, of course, going to be biased, so it would be silly to take it at face value:

On Cory Doctorow

More to the point: through the cumulative readings of a handful of BB posts, I had formed an opinion of this guy without ever having sought out his side of things. I took someone else’s opinion of him at face value because I knew nothing about him and had no particular reason to suspect anything else.

I don’t have much personal interest finding out “the truth” about Andrew Burt, so I’m not going to spend a bunch of time pouring over posts from Cory and other SFWA members and cross-referencing them with Burt’s rebuttals, etc, etc. But this experience was a good reminder for me about the importance of paying critical attention to how and why I believe what I believe.
Oskar

I have no idea whether you’d be interested or have enough time (or support from the community), but seriously Cory, you’d be PERFECT for the job. Cory Doctorow as president of SFWA: talk about Awesome Fearitude.
Kytsune

I find it singularly amazing that the SFWA maintains the cohesion that it currently enjoys because it is made up of the second-most dramatic species this world will ever know: writers. And none of them seem to want to lead the bustling group anywhere — and can I blame them? No.

All this together, I agree that the executives who represent the SFWA do need to be credible writers. While acting like a pompous prig with delusions of literary popularity isn’t uncommon for the guiding lights of the community, doing so with little account for the real world — such as blindly lashing about with copyright law, beating and bruising the rest of the community — will not end well.

On the SFWA drama: Screw herding cats — try herding squid!

Kyt Dotson
Jeff

I don’t know, seems like no one want the job so they can do it better. I suggest the Cory takes a turn at it. Have fun.

As for Burt’s lack of writing credentials: if he had been posting free shorts or novels on his website (which I don’t think he has done), would that count? After all, if Librarians can “validate” self-published writers, can’t the writer him/herself validate their own work? I tend to doubt it. Besides, one hardly has to be a big time writer to understand the industry and to work effectively within that industry to address the most important issues. It’s not rocket science.
Robotech_Master

I have to admit, I do have Andrew Burt to thank for something. He gave me my first “hit” of full Internet freedom. Back in ’91, my college didn’t have access to USENET, but I was able to get an account on Burt’s free public-access UNIX box, nyx.cs.du.edu (later nyx.net), and whole new vistas of Internet discussion were opened up to me. (According to the Nyx trading card I have in front of me, Nyx was “a SPARC2, a SPARC10, 5Gb disk space, 224Mb RAM, an Annex x1 and 16 14.4K modems.” My, how times have changed.)

Just think, if that was the only contribution he ever attempted to make to geek culture, we would still think of him kindly. Just goes to show you should stick with what you’re good at.
Johan Larson

Besides, one hardly has to be a big time writer to understand the industry and to work effectively within that industry to address the most important issues. It’s not rocket science.

Is it more difficult to become a professional writer than a rocket scientist? There’s certainly more competition for the writing job.