From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Sep 03 2001 - 06:56:29 MDT
On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 03:24:30AM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > It's not censorship. It's just that there's not really a market for
> > her ideas here. Clue: she's considered rather radical by US standards.
> > By British norms she's barking mad. She may well have been published
> > here -- but never made the bestseller lists, and isn't in print today
> > (or at any time in my living memory).
>
> Sorry, but that is censorship if it is not at least tried to
> publish the works of a best selling author. If she is "barking
> mad" by British norms (though I hardly think you speak for all
> British) then so much the worse for the country.
Censorship, by definition, is action carried out by a government to
prevent publication or dissemination of ideas.
There _is_ government censorship of literature in the UK; it's called
the Obscene Publications Act (1958), and it's applied primarily to sexual
material. There's a secondary categoriy of censorship imposed by the
Race Relations Act -- actual incitement to racial violence is an offense,
and this can include written (or musical) material.
Guess what: I'm not a fan of the OPA. I want to see it abolished. And I
think the RRA is badly flawed and over-broad in its reach.
However, there's nothing in the OPA or the RRA about politics. Nor are
there any laws or regulations banning Rand from the UK. As Damien has
pointed out -- and I stand corrected on this -- Rand was published
over here ... before my time.
She just appears to have slipped out of print, and stayed there for at
least the last twenty-five years.
* Is it "censorship" if an author doesn't try to sell reprint rights to
their work after it goes out of print?
* Is it "censorship" if an author dies and their executors don't try to
sell reprint rights to their work abroad?
* Is it "censorship" if an author or their agents submit their work to a
publisher and the publisher declines to print it because they don't
think they can market it effectively?
If you can assert with a straight face that any of those three situations
constitute censorship, then I submit that you've got an excellent career
ahead of you in politics.
-- Charlie
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