1. Once an author writes a book it might belong to them in terms of copyright but it also belongs to the world as a creation. But some writers try to self-cancel. Some thoughts on this with reference to Rosemary Tonks, Sidney Hook, Kafka, Virgil, Seuss, James Gould Cozzens, etc. https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1368202799935332352 …
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8. Even Stephen King has taken a book out of circulation! King's friend Harlan Ellison had a few early books he was embarrassed by. Not only would they not be kept in print, if a fan offered them to be signed Ellison would rip them up!https://twitter.com/mattkeeley/status/1368983687715557382 …
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9. James Gould Cozzens regarded first three or four novels as an embarrassment and when he became a bestseller in 1950s refused to let them be reprinted. True also of many other writers, notably Mordecai Richler.
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10. Virgil wanted the Aeneid(which he was still working on) to be destroyed. Most of the Kafka canon is works that were unpublished while he was alive which he wanted his executor to destroy. Fortunately, neither was listened to.
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11. If you read Kafka's oeuvre, you are doing so in violation of his will. There's no easy answers here: what should be preserved is always going to be a contest between writers, estates, and the reading public. Hard to find a solution to please everyone.
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12. One takeaway is that despite the culture war certainties offered in the Seuss debate, we're dealing with a complex area of competing just clams. I think looser copyright after writer's death helps sort some of this out by removing a veto point.
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13. Tangentially, this is another place where the cancel culture hysteria, if it were based on what it claims to be, would look to policy solutions rather than performative outrage.https://twitter.com/alex_shephard/status/1368992283782176777 …
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End of conversation
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Capitalism is what cancels most books. When the market for a particular book is saturated & sales grind to a halt, publishers liquidate remaining stock and stop ordering & distributing copies. This usually occurs decades before the copyright expires.
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