January 13, 2017. Just a few days ago.
To my surprise, Yuri Foreman got a title shot against Erislandy Lara. Nobody gave him much of a chance. He'd been inactive for a few years and at 36 was well past his prime.
As is always the case with Yuri, the announcers couldn't help but play the Jew-card, and tell the world that this isn't just a white fighter, but "the first Orthodox Jew to hold a title in 70 years."
[That was the WBA title, which he won in 2009 against David Santos by unanimous decision, and lost in his very next fight, against Miguel Cotto, by TKO.]
The announcers added that despite being Orthodox, and in fact, a rabbi, Yuri Foreman was willing to fight on the Sabbath. As I understand it, Friday evening (and Saturday morning) is a time to be in the synagogue for services, and if you're Orthodox, you aren't tearing paper, running a crockpot, or even taking an elevator, much less fighting. Especially when it's your occupation, and you're not defending yourself for being in a changing neighborhood.
Hmmm. Jack Benny didn't broadcast on Yom Kippur. Sandy Koufax refused to play baseball on certain holy days. How does an Orthodox Jewish rabbi make an exception in such a case?
The Jewish Bea Arthur, aka "Maude," had a catchphrase: "God'll get you for that!"
To be fair, while a somewhat lucky fighter to have won, even briefly, any kind of title, Yuri was not considered that great. No expert thought Foreman had a chance against the Cuban fighter, and Landy himself predicted a 6th round KO. Down in Florida, where Cubans are much more numerous than retired Jews, the Cuban flags waved brightly. A few had flags with the Star of David. Yuri was doing fine for three rounds. In the fourth, the light-hitting fighter was winning the round on aggression alone, but in the midst of a flurry, walked right into an uppercut. He was floored. He struggled and desperately tried to "clear the cobwebs" but was counted out.
What I took away from the fight was not that older fighters rarely win a comeback, but something newer "rules change." Even rules on traditional laws. Even sacred ones.
A few days later, in curious Internet-surfing mode, I wondered what the very late Bud Collyer's two religious-poetry books were like. Any online reviews from the distant past, or by a current blogger? Would one or the other be worth buying? Almost as soon as I discovered one of the books was less than $2 (plus $4 shipping) from the usual suspects, I discovered it could be read FREEEEEEE.
"The Open Library" had digitized one of the two books, now over 50 years old. WHO in their right mind would digitize it? Oh, the same ones that digitize old Thomas Hood poetry books and stick them on Archive.org. But Collyer's book isn't really "public domain" yet. His estate or his publisher both have rights to it.
I joined "The Open Library" (no fee, just another website having my email account and password) and began reading Collyer's peculiarly long poems. The 96 page book had only 5, each stretched out over page after page.
Technically, you can read the book online but NOT download it. But, technically, most any tech wizard could probably download it. I simply took a screen capture. And in this Internet age, "fair use" would also mean I could've assembled the entire thing for you, or even put it in a zip file.
"What can they do? Sue you! Ha! "The Open Library" doesn't really OWN any rights, do they? Collyer's been dead nearly 50 years, and his publisher couldn't make money on this thing even if it was floated to Kindle for free, with money coming per download." Nice rationalizations, one and all.
What a lovely thing, how Google often gives you most pages of a book to read FREE, and Amazon often does, too. How nice forums and torrents do it. Bloggers do it. Educated fleas do it.
If you can't get to a library, or your local library is small (or going out of business) how lovely to have an open INTERNET LIBRARY giving you access without leaving your home. Lovely...lovely...
I typed in MY name, and was surprised to see many of my 19 books available for perusal on the site.
Er, uh, why is THAT? None of my books are remotely "public domain."
I understand that a LIBRARY can buy a book of mine, and "share" it with hundreds of strangers. The deal is, they bought the book. Libraries guarantee an author and publisher a certain amount of "break even" sales. The rationale is that "those people who took the book out of the library would NEVER have bought it. But they may buy the next one!"
All right. But WHO gave "The Open Library" permission to COPY my book? To DIGITIZE my book?
In my book contracts, the publisher controls ALL rights for me, from translations to audio versions to any possible electronic version using media not even invented yet.
NOBODY gave "The Open Library" permission to digitize, and in the case below, the listed publisher isn't even mine.
My first novel is technically MY property. I own reprint rights. I could float it up to Kindle or find some company to spread it to all the usual suspects in both EPUB and MOBI versions, for whatever download price and "print on demand" I'd like.
But, like Rebbe Foreman interpreting Orthodox Jewish laws to indicate he could fight on the Sabbath, The Great God Google has a master plan. It's a noble one. EVERY book, EVERY magazine, EVERY newspaper should be available to EVERYONE for FREE. They've FOUGHT for this, and intimidated politicians for it. They, along with Amazon and eBay and other giants who now dwarf NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC or the film studios, do as they please. These Big Brothers know best. And what could be better or nobler than making sure everyone on the Internet has access to everything? With Google, Amazon and eBay (and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Lolcats and on and on) making the money?
Sounds a bit like Communism, doesn't it?
Google's Sergey Brin is another Putin? It's made him one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Brin needs to use MY content to add to his wealth? His precedent is being used by well-meaning sites like "The Open Library" (which, for all I know, is owned by Google?)
I'm supposed to change my way of thinking, look on the bright side, and think, "More people will have heard of me, if my old books are FREEEEEE on the Internet, where some so-called "non profit" company or some VERY profit company is making money off ads, links, or donation money.
SOMEBODY thought it was worth their time to buy my book (even for a buck in a thrift shop), carefully separate the pages from the binding and SCAN them all. Who would do that without being paid? Somebody was paid via a grant, donation money, or because somebody's running a lucrative business and can afford to hire some drones.
What happened to owning your own copyright and having it respected?
It got knocked to its knees in the 21st Century, like Yuri Foreman in the 4th round.
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