fairyd123  has informed over at torch_wood   that the new Torchwood unofficial episode guide out called Something in the Darkness by Stephen James Walker has a section in it called "Fan Comment" where apparently he excerpted heavily from people's LJ reviews. I'm apparently on the list of people from whom he excerpted.

There's been some intense unhappiness stated by those excerpted and by fans in general, for having their words quoted without even an email being sent out, asking for permission. I can totally understand why this would anger people since it's not terribly nice to find out someone might be getting royalties off of a book that's got your words in it. No one is asking for monetary compensation, but a courtesy email might have been nice.

I haven't seen the book, nor will I probably ever get to since so far it's only been published in the UK. So for all I know, Walker's lifted a partial, sentence from a review I wrote that's about as general as "Jack saved the world, hooray" or something like that. But either way, I'm not too bothered by it. But that might have something to do with the fact that I worked in publishing and I feel the intense pain of writers and editors who are trying to put out a book, looking to cut corners where they can in terms of how to spend their rapidly decreasing time.

An email to the LJ users would probably have taken a grand total of 1 hour to write. And that's if you were going to get very specific about which section you wanted to excerpt and your reasons why, etc. A fast typer who is good with the cut and paste function could do it in 40 minutes. But when the crunch is on and your legal department is more concerned with making sure the BBC is not going to lop heads over some random content, this is probably not on the list of priorities.

What I'm actually more annoyed with is the author's response to these grumblings with a post on Outpost Gallifrey. The tenor of his letter (addressed specifically to fairyd123) is that other fans who were excerpted were fine and pleased with it, so he doesn't understand why she isn't. But if that's her attitude than he won't again excerpt from her. Ever.

Come ON. Of course some people would be upset! Walker could stand to show a little more sheepishness at being caught out and less defensive about how what he did is perfectly legal and moral and a cornerstone of literary criticism. Firstly, he's not DOING literary criticism. Secondly, those excerpted for literary criticism are referenced in proper format, which I don't believe he did.

Frankly, I was fine with being excerpted and somewhat pleased he found a bit of my review thoughtful enough for quoting. But his response to the grumblings seriously put me off. I can sympathize with not having much time to cross all your t's and for just general "I didn't think. It's not illegal so I thought it was okay." But this defense of making it seem like unhappiness at being excerpted unwittingly is "wrong" is ridiculous.