The Humble Ebook Bundle – a two-week, pay-what-you-like, DRM-free ebook sale – has just revealed the four bonus books in week two: XKCD Volume 0 by Randall Munrow; Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean; Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black and the bestselling Machine of Death anthology. To get these… READ THE REST
Hm… Signal to Noise was in the first Humble e-book bundle, too. I guess I’ve bought it twice, now.
I wonder, can I sell or give away one of the copies I’ve bought?
[edit] And, two copies of xkcd: volume 0 as well. [/edit]
I guess there’s no law about borrowing book titles? Signal to Noise is a pretty good SF novel by Eric S. Nylund. Is there nothing stopping me from writing a piece of trash and calling it Moby DIck or Gullivers Travels? We’re not even talking about homage as in Corys work. I heard a news piece about a battle over the movie title “The Butler” with the original dating from 1915, Apparently the MPAA now has a “no title stealing” rule for it’s members, about the first good thing I’ve heard about them. Seems after the 2 “Crash” movies, one based on the classic novel, people had enough.
Signal to Noise is a technical term with more than one meaning. Some titles get reused a lot. There are a ton of stories called Nightfall for the same reason. It has a literal and metaphoric meaning.
Your post seems to imply that the Signal to Noise in the humble ebook bundle is borrowing the title of Eric S. Nylund’s 1998 novel, when the reverse is the case.
Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean was released in collected form under that title in 1992, but it was originally published in serialized form starting in 1989.
I don’t think I implied anything, I just said it had the same title. It really doesn’t matter does it? It’s just amazing that you can patent some really absurd crap, trademark common phrases, but can’t copyright a book title. I’ll bet I can’t publish a “whatever for Dummies”, they’ll have surely got that protected by a trademark. Why aren’t book titles trademarked?
Sure S to N is a common technical phrase, but is it necessary to have 2 or more books by that name? I still resent Cameron stealing the title “Avatar”, but not as much as I resent the Shyamalan film.
Really? You didn’t imply anything? Reallllly? Seriously, why can’t people just admit their mistakes? “You’re right. I didn’t bother to look up the publication dates before making my accusations.”
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Also, story bundle! http://www.storybundle.com All indie authors.
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