Lee Goldberg

Fanficcers say “Uncle”

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!BQZC7Z!BWk~$(KGrHgoH-CsEjlLlzPB1BJ4prspev!~~_12 That delusional TWILIGHT fan isn't the only one trying to sell fanfiction on eBay…fanficcers L. Lazarus & A. Morrisetti have copied the look of the original MAN FROM UNCLE tie-in paperbacks from the 1960s to sell their unauthorized UNCLE novels on the auction site for $21.95 each:. 

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Continued…

NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE DISCONTINUED PRINTING OF THE BELOVED ACE NOVELS, NAPOLEON SOLO AND ILLYA KURYAKIN COME TO YOU ONCE AGAIN…IN PAPERBACK!

148 pages of sheer thrills and adventure just as you remember it from the original series. This book and the rest to come in this series are near exact replicas of the original paperbacks…but with new stories. Written by an actual screenwriter, you will feel you are seeing what you are reading.

A MUST HAVE for any U.N.C.L.E. fan.

Make room on your bookshelf right next to the ACE books you have loved and cherished for all these years.

They offer this laughable "disclaimer" :

THESE BOOKS ARE NOT ACE PUBLISHED NOVELS, NOR DO WE INTEND TO COPY ANY PART OF ANY ACE PUBLICATION. THESE BOOKS ARE FOR FAN USE ONLY AND ARE NOT INTENDED FOR MASS MEDIA DISTRIBUTION.

And yet, they have copied the Ace books and they are selling them on eBay, trying to make money off a property they don't own. 

One of the two idiots, who purports to be a "professional television writer with credits to include 'Hart to Hart''" is also selling an UNCLE novella for $18.00.

This is, of course, a blatant copyright violation, but my guess is that the guys think they can slide by because the underlying property is so old. My guess is that they are wrong.

UPDATE 4-19-2009:  They have revised their "disclaimer": 

These books are fan fiction and are not meant to infringe on any rights held by ACE Publishing, Warner Brothers, or any other entity who holds any rights to the Man from U.N.C.L.E., the television series or the previously published series of books. These books are NOT intended for mass distribution and are for fan use only!

I have news for these dimwits. Saying that you're not infringing on rights while you are doing just that doesn't make it okay. That's like saying "I'm not stealing your car even though I've just hotwired it, sped away in it, and am trying to sell it on Craig's List for money I will spend on hookers and blow. The car is intended for fan use only."

Day of the Living Dead

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Today I was so jet-lagged that I felt like I was sleep walking around Munich. I know I looked like the undead. But I fortified myself with some tea and chocolate at Kafer before the big pitch and it went well. Between the sugar, caffeine and adreniline, I've managed to stay alert from mid-afternoon until right about now (8:30 pm on Thursday night). We had a post-pitch discussion over dinner and then on my way back to the hotel I treated myself to a Kopenhagener pastry for a job well done. I am going to go to bed as soon as I finish typing this post.  Tomorrow morning I have a breakfast meeting with my friends at Hofmann & Voges Productions and then it's back to L.A.   All in all, I think it was  a very productive  five days that I hope to build upon in the coming weeks.

Hot Dogging

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Greetings from Munich. I arrived here on Tuesday night from London, where it was rainy and gray, to weather that felt more like Southern California than Germany. I guzzled Diet Coke on the flight so that I wouldn't fall asleep when I met my friends Daniela & David Tully for drinks at 9 p.m.  Daniela is a top executive at ProSeiben, a major German network, and her American husband David is a screenwriter. It was great to see them again and to get caught up on the state of the German TV market (which is lousy, just like everywhere else).

The next morning I awoke to a beautiful day…clear blue skies, warm weather. It was the nicest weather I've ever had in Munich and I took full advantage of it, walking all over the city and discovering it anew.  The best part was sitting in the Viktualienmarkt, eating a delicious hotdog and butter streusel, sipping Diet Coke, and enjoying the scenery.

I got back to the hotel in mid-afternoon for meetings with my friends at Action Concept, the studio I am working with over here. I ended the day with a nice long dinner at an outside table at an old Bavarian restaurant with Heiko Schmidt, the terrific line producer I worked with on FAST TRACK. I was in bed by midnight…but I awoke at 3:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up around 4, called home, answered some emails, and studied my notes for my meetings.

Now it's 7 a.m. I have been up for three-and-a-half hours already, and my meetings start with breakfast at 9. The most important meeting is at 3, when I will have to pitch three projects to a potential international coproduction partner. I hope I don't fall asleep in middle of it.

Tomorrow morning I head back to L.A….and hope to do some serious plotting for my next  MONK book on the plane. On Monday I start jury duty.

Lazy Monday

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I woke up at 6 a.m. on Monday…I would have liked to sleep more after a day without sleep, but that's jet-lag for  you. I say in bed for an hour, trying to sleep, then  got up, had breakfast at a nice little cafe, and spent an hour or so making notes on a feature rewrite that I am up for. Then I roamed around London as it woke up, too. 

Around noon, I headed out to actor Shaun Prendergast's  home for easter and had a marvelous time with his friends and family. I lost track of most their names in my jet-lag haze, but there were lots of actors and writers there, including Stephen Tompkinson, the star of a series called WILD AT HEART. I've  never seen his show but I knew that I'd seen him before, I just couldn't place his face until the train ride back into London…he was in the final PRIME SUSPECT.

 Stephen and his wife shared some fascinating stories about life in South Africa. They also shot a documentary in Africa…I didn't quite get what it was about, but part of it involved taking tribesmen up in a hot  air balloon to see their land from the sky for the first time.  Another actor, who I gathered is also a director, regaled us with tales about his time on location in India on SHARPE'S PERIL.

Anyway, I had a great time chatting while stuffing myself with Shaun's delicious steak & oyster pie, roast potatos, and all sorts of tasty dishes laid out buffet-style on a big table in the kitchen. I learned that the TV business in the UK is going through a rough patch, too. Shows are being asked to significantly trim their budgets or face cancellation. I was told that two hit shows, LEWIS and WIRE IN THE BLOOD, were cancelled over costs and that one of the networks is on shaky financial footing. I'm sure I will learn more about that when I have breakfast with my UK  agent and head off together for some studio meetings.

I spent my evening walking around London and then went back to my hotel room to write up my notes for my pitch on the feature rewrite…and was in bed by 11. I awoke 45 minutes ago…at 5 am. Wide awake. That's jet-lag. I have lots of meetings this morning…then a flight to Munich late this afternoon…and drinks tonight with some friends from a German TV network. I hope I can catch a nap on the plane…

I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane…

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I am off to Europe  in a few minutes for two and a half days in London and two and a half days in Munich. In London, I'll spend Easter Monday with actor Shaun Prendergast and his family (Shaun was one of the stars of my film FAST TRACK). On Tuesday,  I'll be meeting my UK agent for the first time face-to-face for breakfast and then he's got meetings set up for me with some studios. Then I am jetting off to Munich, where I will be joining my good friends at Action Concept to pitch some projects to broadcasters. It's going to be a whirlwind week but I am really looking forward to it.  It's been a year since I've been to Europe but it feels like much longer, especially after spending so many months working there in 2006 & 2007. 

The Mail I Get

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This one came today from Amazon Customer Service and the subject was "Your Amazon Inquiry." But I didn't make an inquiry. Here's what it said:

My name is Janet; I am a senior member of our Connect team, a part of my job
consists of deciding if AmazonConnect postings adhere to our guidelines. As
such, your account was brought to my attention.

Some of your posts have been found to be spiteful. In order to facilitate
customer buying choices, we encourage authors to discuss their work and
information related to it, however posts that are spiteful will be removed.

If this continues, we will remove your posting privileges from your
AmazonConnect account in accordance with our Conditions of Use.

My Amazon blog is a mirror of this one. I was curious which posts troubled Amazon (if it's really Amazon, of course… it's probably a ruse) and sent this note:

Spiteful? Oh my. Please indicate to me which specific posts of mine you believe are "spiteful" and why so I can better understand Amazon's thinking in this regard.

I'll let you know what they say.

Goodbye, Starlog

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01Starlog Magazine is no more — at least not in print. This is very sad news for me because I put myself through school writing for the magazine (among others) and it had an enormous impact on my life that I am still feeling today. 

On assignment for Starlog, I visited hundreds of movie and TV sets and interviewed so many actors, screenwriters, directors…people like Tom Cruise, Robert Zemeckis, Roy Scheider, Paul Verhoeven, Roger Moore, Michael J. Fox, Michael Crichton, William Friedkin, Sigourney Weaver, Richard Donner, Timothy Hutton, Gene Roddenberry, Richard Maibaum, Dan O'Bannon, Tom Selleck, Wes Craven, Kurt Russell, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Marquand, Tobe Hooper, Johnny Depp, George Lucas, and Lorenzo Semple Jr., to name just a few. And I learned a lot about the movie and TV business along the way.

I collected some of those interviews, along with articles by my friends (and fellow Starlog writers) William Rabkin and Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier,  in two books — Science Fiction Film-Making in the 1980s and Dreamweavers: Fantasy Film-making in the 1980s.

Perhaps the highlight of my time as a reporter for Starlog was when they flew me to London to cover the premiere of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, the first James Bond film starring Timothy Dalton. 

All the journalists were invited by the studio to the premiere, which Prince Charles and Lady Diana were attending as well. We had to wear tuxedos and were driven to the event in limos. There were huge crowds being held back behind barracades in front of the Odeon Theatre as we pulled up. I got out of the limo just as a short young lady was emerging from the limo in front of me, so we walked in together. People were going nuts, taking pictures of us and waving. I leaned over and whispered to her: "Makes you wish you were famous, doesn't it?"X10799

She laughed, patted my arm, and we parted in the lobby. Almost immediately I was swarmed by my fellow reporters. One of them asked "Do you know who you were walking with?"

I had no idea. I figured she was another reporter. He told me it was Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. I still had no idea who she was. So either she thought my remark was clever or that I was a complete dolt for not knowing who she was. But I like to think that somewhere out there is a photo from that event with a caption like "Chrissie Hynde with unidentified lover."

But, most of all, I am thankful to Starlog for my family. If not for the magazine, I might never have met the charming Lofficiers, which would have been a terrible thing…since they introduced me to my wife Valerie. We've been married for 19 years and have a 13-year-old daughter, Madison.

So for me, Starlog was more than a magazine that covered science fiction and fantasy movies, books and TV shows. It changed my life.

Good-bye, Starlog. I will miss you.

UPDATE: Starlog is gathering some of the reactions to the bad news. My good friend Dave McDonnell, long-time editor of the magazine, posted this:

"Lee Goldberg is an old friend of mine. His unsolicited interview "The Man who Killed Spock" (WRATH OF KHAN writer Jack Sowards) was on my desk the day I started. I lobbied to buy it and he wrote countless pieces for us."

It was my first national magazine sale and I was totally thrilled. That sale, along with tearsheets from some of my subsequent Starlog articles, led to me writing for Newsweek, United Press International, American Film, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times syndicate, among many others. But you never forget your "first."

UPDATE 4-15-2009: More reactions to the news from Entertainment Weekly,  SFSignal,  Bob Greenberger, Mark Evanier, John Kenneth Muir and my cousin Danny Barer.

Mrs. Potato Head Speaks

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Lady Sybilla, the much-maligned, crack-pot author of  "Russet Noon," a self-published, fanfic sequel to TWILIGHT, has given an interview to a Brazillian website. She says, in part: 

F: So besides all the problems you are excited and proud of it? 

A: Absolutely, I know there’s been a strong reaction, and I’ve learned to take the good with the bad. 

F: So what do you see as good? Cause I know that a lot of the fans don’t want it, but a lot of them do. 

A: Yes, I have to thank the haters for the publicity. 

F: And how the release is gonna be, still September on the internet? 

A: Well, I had already bought an ISBN number for it and everything but I withdrew it, because I realized I’d never get away with selling it, so I gave refunds to all the Ebay buyers, and now I’m waiting a while to see how things turn out. But probably the release will still be September, in chapters online. 

F: Do you feel like your work its more like a regular book or a fanfic in a bigger scale? Cause some people say it is. 

A: I believe I have more training and education than the average fanfic writer, so that’s the only reason I wanted to release it as a book, but I guess it’s been turned into a huge moral issue. 

F: So about the whole publication problem and rights,did you receive any contact from Stephenie’s people? 

A: Yes, that’s definitely a legal mess, no attorney will defend me if I decide to publish. Stephenie’s rep or even herself didn’t contact me, I believe she probably has her mind made up about me already. I think she laughs at the whole situation, to be honest, it’s just hilarious, the rage, the hate, the strong emotions.

Mrs. Potato Head, although she considers herself more educated than your average fanficcer, seems to have realized too late that she has no understanding whatsoever of copyright law. I suspect this revelation came sometime after eBay shut down her account for terms of use violations and shortly before the cease-and-desist letters came from Meyer's attorney, publishers, etc. Yes, I think she's lying about not being slapped down by Meyer & Co. Her  "Russet Noon" website has been shuttered for "renovations" and the press releases touting her fanfic novel have been yanked from prlog.org.

I love that Mrs. Potato Head has the audacity to presume that Meyer sides with her. What an idiot. 

UPDATE 4-19-2009: It's official, Mrs.Potato Head is insane. She has issued yet another rambling, nearly incoherent press release. Her new argument for copyright infringement is that we are all part of some vast, shared mind and therefore anything that anyone claims to create really belongs to everyone. At least, I think that's what she's saying. You decide:

Writers and readers all over the net have opened their eyes to the truth: authors sell their fanfiction and get away with it. Sure, published authors play a safe game around copyright laws and change the names and circumstances of their characters around just enough to claim they've created a new character.[…]No author truly creates characters. The characters already exist in the archetypal world that Jung, Freud and Joseph Campbell have described in their books. The author is a medium who channels these characters. The origin of all characters is the Shared Mind, the only mind that truly exists. Our minds are all one single ocean of shared memories, fantasies, dreams, nightmares and visions […]Laws that attempt to privatize the ownership of characters operate based on a delusion of separateness that we all share in this matrix we call reality.

Uh-huh. I think Mrs. Potato Head lost touch with this "matrix we call reality" a long, long time ago.

Blessed

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P4040140
I am blessed to be in Missouri. Literally. On the flight to St. Louis, the stewardess told me to have a blessed night. And today, when I had lunch in Cape Girardeau at the Everything Is Fried Buffet (okay, that wasn't the name of the place, but it should have been), the waitress told me to have a blessed day. What they really should have at the buffet is a priest on hand to perform last rites. I was the thinnest person in the place by fifty pounds, and I'm not exactly scrawny. Everything they serve is fried, breaded, or noodled. It's no wonder that every patron except me prayed before they ate.

Cape Girardeau is Rush Limbaugh's home town, which explains a lot about Rush. There's a mural of him on the levee downtown and I've got a picture of myself in front of it.  I skipped the tour to his birthplace and the soda fountain where he hung out as a kid and the alley where he was beaten up every day after school.

I'm here for the 94th Annual Missouri Writer's Guild Conference. Yesterday and today Kate Angelella, an editor at Simon & Schuster, and I critiqued manuscripts that were read to us. I kid you not. Two pages were read to us and we had to offer a critique in front of the audience. That's not really fair to the writer or to us, but we all played along anyway. Kate and I were very candid and it's a credit to Missouri writers that neither one of us was beaten up in the parking lot afterwards, though one guy did follow me into the mens room and, while I was peeing, asked me for more advice on his story.

"This isn't a good time," I said, standing at the urinal.

"Why not?"

"Because I am peeing,"

He looked over the divider at me peeing. "How many Diet Pepsis did you have today?"

I wasn't the only one who got hit up in the bathroom for editorial guidance. One of the women authors was sitting in a stall when a lady in the next one slid a manuscript under the divider for her to read.

My keynote address went all right — I only made one reference to bowel movements and three to gang rape, or so I am told. Afterwards, I was asked to assist with the awards ceremony and to hug the winners (most of whom were women). I am not exaggerating when I say that there were at least fifty awards given…a good many of them to the same woman. By the end of the night, I felt like I'd committed adultery.

Tomorrow I do a three hour TV writing seminar and then I head back to L.A…