One hundred years ago was an age of print, when most of our information and knowledge came via books and newspapers. I was reminded of the changes that we’ve seen in information distribution with the release of Before Green Gables on the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables.
Budge Wilson was commissioned by Penguin Books and the L.M. Montgomery family to write the prequel to this popular series of books whose stories take place not far from where we live [full disclosure: Budge Wilson is my mother-in-law]. The official book launch and other events are happening in Toronto this week.
I have been interested in the entire process as I’ve watched from the sidelines. The way in which a work is commissioned by a publishing company, the fact that the heirs to Lucy Maud still have control over her works 100 years later and the slow process of going from manuscript to published book. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from blogging, but then Budge’s prose is of significantly greater quality than my ramblings.
So what will publishing look like 100 years from now? The process of publishing this book is not that different than it was in Montgomery’s time. Will it be the same for Budge Wilson’s grandchildren should they decide to become authors? Will copyright, as we know it, still exist and will it be practical to enforce it?
Harold, I don’t know anything about Canadian copyright. Had AoGG been published in the U.S., it would now be public domain, as is true for any work published prior to 1923.
(I tend to agree with your implication that copyright lasts too long, though at a time when we value bits at least as much as atoms, ownership of real property can endure forever.)
I see two ends of a continuum. One where copyright is the default and the other where public domain is the default. Different cultures, and technologies, see one end is better than the other. Currently, things are shifting; slightly.
And while Anne’s fans rhapsodize about PEI, didja ever notice she’s a Nova Scotian?
I know; Budge and my wife tramped around central Nova Scotia confirming some of the locations in the book.