The artist has the right to choose when and what he publish. We should respect that (and I'm a huge fan of T. Pratchett). Maybe they were not up to his standard, too unrefined...
Well we also don't force nude pictures of celebrities to be published at any point.
If he didn't want to share it, we should respect that wish. Even if it's just for our peace of mind that our wishes might be respected.
Releasing a bunch of unfinished novels might have disappointed many people too. Either by having a negative effect on his published works, or on their own. It could reflect badly on his estate which manages the IP and presumably acts in good faith to preserve his legacy and reputation.
In the end its up to the creator and the executor of their will to decide how their remaining artefacts are to be treated.
It is not rarely when the unpublished works don't really work out so great or compare well to published works.
And with Terry I have to admit that the last works I have read were not as good as works sometime before them. So these might have been even less representative of his work.
In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
This was eight years before his death in 2015. I have no doubt that he continued writing from habit and I also have little doubt that what he wrote increasingly looked like word salad.
He was very likely all too aware that his unfinished works needed a strong overhaul from an editor in close partnership to tease out portions that were utterly at odds with what he had intended to say or thought he had written.
In the event of death apply steamroller seems like a wise choice.
Indeed - the final few novels lacked the finesse of the earlier works. I believe Pterry, in common with many authors, would produce a basically complete manuscript, and then relentlessly iterate on it - removing inconsistencies, adding detail, etc, until the final result was a truly excellent reading experience.
In his last years I believe Pterry was not actually physically writing himself, but working through an amanuensis. I can easily imagine that this massively complicated the revision process and the novels, probably from Unseen Academicals onwards read to me more like earlier drafts than finished productions.
Now you mention it, something did feel off with it.
I only really got pushed out of my suspension of disbelief with Raising Steam, specifically that the words "molybdenum disulphide" absolutely do not belong in any Discworld story.
Neil Gaiman, who had previously collaborated with Pratchett, was trying to save them and presumably would have cleaned up and finished the stories. He wouldn't have wanted works that would diminish his friend's legacy.
That's not the story - Neil Gaiman just happened to be making an unrelated phone call that nearly delayed them enough to miss the opportunity to steamroll the hard drive.
It's not clear that they even mentioned to Gaiman what they were doing, and I suspect Gaiman wouldn't have wanted to disrespect Pratchett's wishes anyway.
If he thought he wishes weren't going to be respected maybe he would've stopped writing earlier & just destroyed it himself, which would've brought less joy to people.
Finding a steam roller seemed to be harder than it sounds, but I feel like if the estate of Terry Pratchett asked for it they would find someone willing to fire one up for the sake of his final wish.
I think he wanted his stuff destroyed. Quote from an article about him:
"Before he died, Kafka had written a letter to Brod, who found it when he went to clear out Kafka's desk. In this "last will", Kafka instructed Brod to burn all his manuscripts, including his letters and diaries."
Ah thx.
He's especially influential in retrospect, not sure how that weighs in. In general however I also value a society that respects me after death.
If you pay a bit of attention you see that dead people's wishes are worth very little to the living. Even regular people with basic requests are completely ignored even if simple. Specially when the requests are things like "just don't sell X" or "please make sure Y person gets Z thing".
Trying to control what happens after we're dead is normal and I guess it can fuel motivation to work harder and have a purpose, but it's kinda pointless.
> If you pay a bit of attention you see that dead people's wishes are worth very little to the living.
In some cases there are good reasons for that, which is why common law has the "rule against perpetuities"
After all, if some eccentric landowner in the 1800s was scared of electricity and put a clause in their will that electricity could never be used on their property - why should the rightful owners of the property in modern times be bound by the wishes of the long dead?
Of course in the specific case of an author's hard drive, I think it's right to respect their wishes - I wouldn't want the contents of my hard drive published after my death, no matter how much joy it might bring to voyeurs.
There is a long history in literature of ignoring author’s wishes: for example, we wouldn’t know of Kafka if Max Brod hadn’t ignored his instructions to destroy the manuscripts of The Castle, the Trial and others.
(I’m not saying this makes it right, but there’s a long precedent for it happening)
Not only in literature: many things published as Op. posth. in music are also unauthorized—e.g. Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu was posthumously released against the explicit wishes of the author. (Contemporary French copyright law prohibits that for unpublished works—in perpetuity, IIRC.)
They should have asked Musk to send it space. It would have been beautiful to think ten more Pratchett novels are circling Earth for potentially thousands of years. He was a great author.
If one really wants to read the content while also respecting the wishes of the author, perhaps it would be possible to steam roll the hard drive and then forensically extract the data.
The alternative would be to shoot the drive into space, then retrieve it later (for example by taking it on a manned space mission and back).
Or, if one is extra cheeky. One copies the data before destroying the drive. Perhaps Pratchett would even appreciate following the words, but not the intention of the command.
I am glad his wishes has been granted - sadly I listened a new Prince single from his vault - there was a reason why it never saw the light of day as it was studio jam but crap.
His estate now releasing any crap they find in there.
While it's been tough to see the loss of material for further Discworld books, it's probably for the best.
Sir Terry's disease started to show in his last few books already. I'm perfectly fine being left with an incomplete series of books that are all masterpieces, rather than seeing this genius slowly disolve into Alzheimer's dementia. The alternative would be something like what happened to Dune after Herbert's death.
On the topic of Pratchett, I'm reminded of his thoughts on sin (this is a conversation between Mightily Oats, a preacher, and Granny Weatherwax, a witch):
There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”
>In July, a Pennsylvania judge granted the Barnes’s petition to lend a limited number of storied paintings from its collection galleries to other institutions and to also display them temporarily outside the set configurations established by the obsessive founder, Albert C. Barnes (1872—1951) when he was alive.
>The decision comes just when the drama around the Barnes Foundation’s 2012 move from its original suburban home in Merion, Pa., to a sleek new facility in Philadelphia, sparking years of controversy and outcry, had finally died down.
>Both the move and the new lending policy go against Barnes’s wishes as stated in his original indenture of trust, the legal agreement he created in his lifetime.
>Richard Feudale, an attorney in Mt. Carmel, Pa., who has been trying to block the new lending policy, filed a motion in Superior Court this week to strike Judge Sterling’s ruling. His Aug. 8 motion states that if paintings leave the Barnes on loan, visitors will be reading “a story with pages ripped out.”
>The motion added, “This foundation is unique in all the world and its indenture asks one thing, that it be left alone.”
>Tom L. Freudenheim, a former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution who had opposed the Barnes’s move from its original home, said that the lending policy did not surprise him, given the institution’s changes over time, including putting on temporary exhibitions.
>“The Barnes has been acting like a regular museum,” Freudenheim said. The restrictions of the new lending policy struck him as “silly,” he added. “That’s trying to play it both ways.”
>The 2004 legal decision that allowed the Barnes to move was predicated on the idea that the collection would replicate the original configuration of works in the new location, a guideline that was followed within an eighth of an inch.
>Nick Tinari, a Philadelphia lawyer specializing in intellectual property, disagreed with the ruling, saying that it is “continuing to nibble away at what remains of Dr. Barnes’s carcass.”
>Tinari added, “One of the last strictures remaining” of Barnes’s trust, “is the prevention of selling works — that will be next. Mark my words.”
>Sara Geelan, the Barnes’s general counsel, said that the loan changes were not an indication that the institution would seek to make further changes to its indenture of trust. “This is not a slow roll of anything else,” Geelan said.
51 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadSuch a right doesn't exist.
In the end its up to the creator and the executor of their will to decide how their remaining artefacts are to be treated.
And with Terry I have to admit that the last works I have read were not as good as works sometime before them. So these might have been even less representative of his work.
He was very likely all too aware that his unfinished works needed a strong overhaul from an editor in close partnership to tease out portions that were utterly at odds with what he had intended to say or thought he had written.
In the event of death apply steamroller seems like a wise choice.
In his last years I believe Pterry was not actually physically writing himself, but working through an amanuensis. I can easily imagine that this massively complicated the revision process and the novels, probably from Unseen Academicals onwards read to me more like earlier drafts than finished productions.
Now you mention it, something did feel off with it.
I only really got pushed out of my suspension of disbelief with Raising Steam, specifically that the words "molybdenum disulphide" absolutely do not belong in any Discworld story.
It's not clear that they even mentioned to Gaiman what they were doing, and I suspect Gaiman wouldn't have wanted to disrespect Pratchett's wishes anyway.
But I think the spirit of my question was clear and you are nitpicking. So no, you did not have to point out the obvious :P
Trying to control what happens after we're dead is normal and I guess it can fuel motivation to work harder and have a purpose, but it's kinda pointless.
In some cases there are good reasons for that, which is why common law has the "rule against perpetuities"
After all, if some eccentric landowner in the 1800s was scared of electricity and put a clause in their will that electricity could never be used on their property - why should the rightful owners of the property in modern times be bound by the wishes of the long dead?
Of course in the specific case of an author's hard drive, I think it's right to respect their wishes - I wouldn't want the contents of my hard drive published after my death, no matter how much joy it might bring to voyeurs.
(I’m not saying this makes it right, but there’s a long precedent for it happening)
No. I support terrys steam roller mandate.
The alternative would be to shoot the drive into space, then retrieve it later (for example by taking it on a manned space mission and back).
Or, if one is extra cheeky. One copies the data before destroying the drive. Perhaps Pratchett would even appreciate following the words, but not the intention of the command.
His estate now releasing any crap they find in there.
Sir Terry's disease started to show in his last few books already. I'm perfectly fine being left with an incomplete series of books that are all masterpieces, rather than seeing this genius slowly disolve into Alzheimer's dementia. The alternative would be something like what happened to Dune after Herbert's death.
>In July, a Pennsylvania judge granted the Barnes’s petition to lend a limited number of storied paintings from its collection galleries to other institutions and to also display them temporarily outside the set configurations established by the obsessive founder, Albert C. Barnes (1872—1951) when he was alive.
>The decision comes just when the drama around the Barnes Foundation’s 2012 move from its original suburban home in Merion, Pa., to a sleek new facility in Philadelphia, sparking years of controversy and outcry, had finally died down.
>Both the move and the new lending policy go against Barnes’s wishes as stated in his original indenture of trust, the legal agreement he created in his lifetime.
>Richard Feudale, an attorney in Mt. Carmel, Pa., who has been trying to block the new lending policy, filed a motion in Superior Court this week to strike Judge Sterling’s ruling. His Aug. 8 motion states that if paintings leave the Barnes on loan, visitors will be reading “a story with pages ripped out.”
>The motion added, “This foundation is unique in all the world and its indenture asks one thing, that it be left alone.”
>Tom L. Freudenheim, a former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution who had opposed the Barnes’s move from its original home, said that the lending policy did not surprise him, given the institution’s changes over time, including putting on temporary exhibitions.
>“The Barnes has been acting like a regular museum,” Freudenheim said. The restrictions of the new lending policy struck him as “silly,” he added. “That’s trying to play it both ways.”
>The 2004 legal decision that allowed the Barnes to move was predicated on the idea that the collection would replicate the original configuration of works in the new location, a guideline that was followed within an eighth of an inch.
>Nick Tinari, a Philadelphia lawyer specializing in intellectual property, disagreed with the ruling, saying that it is “continuing to nibble away at what remains of Dr. Barnes’s carcass.”
>Tinari added, “One of the last strictures remaining” of Barnes’s trust, “is the prevention of selling works — that will be next. Mark my words.”
>Sara Geelan, the Barnes’s general counsel, said that the loan changes were not an indication that the institution would seek to make further changes to its indenture of trust. “This is not a slow roll of anything else,” Geelan said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/arts/design/barnes-founda...
https://archive.ph/Io4yQ