54 Responses so far

1. 1. Eliani Torres on Jul 15th, 2008 at 2:38 am

   I wouldn”t think it applies to authors whose extant sale/arrangements/contract had no such strings attached. I imagine he’s talking about stories published from this moment on, a condition he is writing into *future* contracts rather than manipulating prior ones . . . right?

2. 2. Marie Brennan on Jul 15th, 2008 at 2:52 am

   On the one hand, I’d help pay to get authors out of a contract situation turned toxic; on the other hand, that’s paying Sanders for his toxic behavior.

   Faced with a choice like that, a DoS attack on Helix starts looking like an attractive third option.

3. 3. SMD on Jul 15th, 2008 at 3:25 am

   Does this guy even want a career in editing or is he intentionally trying to ruin any chance he has of trying to save himself before he’s officially been roasted to death?

4. 4. SMD on Jul 15th, 2008 at 3:30 am

   On a side note: I think given your pull in the SF field and the pull of several people who share similar opinions who have presences on the Net (like K. Tempest) you could set up some sort of donation service to help these folks out. I don’t know how much business Helix is going to be doing if he keeps acting like a petulant child. You know, this whole thing could have been avoided if he had treated the initial issue with some tact…but I guess it’s a good idea he’s outing himself and essentially becoming the loony side of the SF world.

5. 5. Rob Darnell on Jul 15th, 2008 at 4:19 am

   It’s clear that Sander is being as difficult as he can be. I wouldn’t pay him anything.

   I wonder what the author’s contracts say. Is there room for him to pull a stunt like this and get away with it?

6. 6. Joe Sherry on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:20 am

   Wow. Just wow.

   Wonder if a way of getting around that would just not explain why one wants the story pulled.

   Of course, if the author is not white then perhaps an assumption will be made about the reason.

   Was the website or the contracts previously clear in stating that there was no charge in pulling stories?

   That’s just crass.

7. 7. rydra_wong on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:22 am

   As a random reader who’s been following all this, I’d really hate to see anyone paying Sanders any money for this kind of extortion (especially after he’d previously said that requests to remove stories would be honoured).

   Personally, I suggest that a simple strategy might be for authors to ask for their stories to be removed (*without* paying him for the privilege) — then, if he refuses, to publicize this fact as widely as possible. Save $40, and contribute to hoisting Sanders by his own petard: it’s a win-win.

8. 8. David Moles on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:34 am

   It’s my understanding that the contract gives Helix a non-exclusive right to host the story in perpetuity.

   I imagine if there’s a successful donation drive, the price of an exit visa will only go up.

9. 9. Steve Buchheit on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:42 am

   I believe we’re still in the anger phase.

10. 10. Kate Nepveu on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:45 am

    I am not an author, let alone a _Helix_ author; but a possible option for _Helix_ authors, given that (as I understand) the contract is for _non-exclusive_ web rights, is to put stories up on one’s own web space–or maybe space specifically devoted to those objecting to Sanders’ behavior, with nice big explanations there of why it’s needed–and changing all their links to the non-_Helix_ location and asking everyone else to do the same.

    I realize it’s not as good as removing all associations with _Helix_, but it might be a workable alternative to extortion.

11. 11. Kate Nepveu on Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:46 am

    Err, to paying extortion, that is.

12. 12. Alex on Jul 15th, 2008 at 7:09 am

    Wow. To this whole saga. Fucking wow.

13. 13. Mark Terry on Jul 15th, 2008 at 7:54 am

    Double fucking wow. First we shoot ourself in the foot, then we dump gasoline on our head and light a match.

    This is getting sort of dramatic.

14. 14. Brian Dolton on Jul 15th, 2008 at 8:40 am

    It would be funny if it weren’t true… oh, no wait.

    It’s true AND it’s funny!

    Don’t pay. Don’t even THINK of paying. Why should Sanders benefit financially from his own assholiness?

15. 15. Nora on Jul 15th, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Kate,

    Yes, some of us are discussing exactly that as an option. Remains to be seen if there’s enough will among the Helix authors to do this, though. I think a lot of people are just tired.

16. 16. Yoon Ha Lee on Jul 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Would it help if I posted the text of my contract on my LJ so people can have a look? It really is perpetual non-exclusive archive rights, and when I requested that my story be taken down, I did note in my email that I understood that and that Helix would be fully within its rights to refuse. But they did honor my request, despite the less-than-professional email response.

17. 17. Chris Gerrib on Jul 15th, 2008 at 9:35 am

    Apparently this guy hasn’t heard of the first rule of holes - when in one, stop digging.

18. 18. Kate Nepveu on Jul 15th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    I’m more than glad to donate a domain name and web hosting for those wanting a place to put up their stories, btw. Though I perfectly well understand just being tired of the whole thing, too.

19. 19. Kelly McCullough on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    Toby, you’re really shining on this one.

    Thank you.

    I’ve linked this, and if a fund drive becomes necessary, count me in both financially and in terms of publicizing it. I’m not a big fan of extortion, especially not when it’s directed at such a financially vulnerable class as short story writers. What truly amazes me, beyond the bigotry even is the truly epic stupid. You would expect someone in a hole to stop digging, especially when the sides start to cave in.

20. 20. Marsha Sisolak on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am

    You know, every time I think Sanders can’t do anything more bone-headed than what he’s already pulled, he steps deeper into his self-made cesspool.

    I’d been thinking he’d come to his senses–surely he’s not willing to take the magazine down with him. But my answer’s shifting to the affirmative, and not surprisingly, I have to believe he’d most likely blame its demise on anyone who rejected his behavior publicly.

    I’ll contribute, Toby. Just let me know.

21. 21. Meg on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am

    I say we use Sanders’ own exception against him. He said he would give a free pass to those writers who needed the stories removed for professional reasons.

    Well, let’s give ‘em a professional reason. Let’s have an anthology or something called “The Helix Refugees” and it can be all the stories that were pulled the from the Helix archives in protest, and we can sell it and maybe even give the proceeds to a good cause.

    And, even better, if he goes back on his word, I imagine someone somewhere might be able to sue him. I think it constitutes some kind of verbal contract. I’m no law expert.

    Also? I’d be really great if somebody brought a lawsuit against him for any kind of reason. I’d contribute to that legal fund in a split second.

22. 22. Michael Thomas on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    What I think would be cool is if somebody gathered the pulled stories, got some more submissions, and put together a charity anthology. The proceeds could then go to an Islamic anti-defamation organization.

23. 23. Bankuei on Jul 15th, 2008 at 11:19 am

    I don’t know about everyone, but one person mentioned that Helix has a non-exclusive right to have the stories online - would it be possible to gather the stories elsewhere? (I haven’t seen the contracts, so I don’t know the specifics, though).

    I’m also in the camp of don’t pay fools for foolish behavior.

24. 24. Celia on Jul 15th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    I’m with Kate on this, with the added suggestion of making an effort (I believe some minor google-bombing with the help of friends would suffice) to get any web searches looking for it at helix (ie, helix + author name) to pull the reposted story link rather than the original.

25. 25. Arachne Jericho on Jul 15th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    I’m with the make-a-website-refuge crowd.

    It shouldn’t be too hard to effectively shove Helix down the Google rankings or make a “Helix is bastards” site show up close to it. Just a matter of pushing the right SEO (search engine optimization) buttons.

26. 26. SMD on Jul 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Well, one way to get around this whole thing is get someone to put together an anthology (hey, there’s Lulu, and we could use that) and anyone wanting out of the contract and needing legal reason to would then have one :P. I’d be willing to do that.

27. 27. Bruce A. on Jul 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Hmm, take the stories Sanders refuses to take off the Helix website and republish them in an anthology….

    Obviously, the title of such an anthology would have to be:

    DOUBLED HELIX

28. 28. Shalanna Collins on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    Never thought I would be happy to have been rejected . . . and see others who are similarly happy.

    My story was a mess (according to Nick, anyway). Yet it escaped getting into those archives, which saved me $40. This means my story being Bad was a GOOD thing.

29. 29. SMD on Jul 15th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

    Bruce: That’s a fantastic title! Tobias, get on top of that one! Seriously! I’d do it but I don’t think anyone would listen to me like they listen to you :P.

30. 30. Derryl Murphy on Jul 16th, 2008 at 12:39 am

    See, this is why I’m glad I’m only on the periphery of the field these days. I just hate to see this shit, and if I were caught up in it I’d be in pretty damn deep. Not good with life as it is these days.

    I have to say, though, just what the hell did people expect? I’m sure as hell not blaming the victims here, but did everyone out there expect that Sanders was going to be different this time around? He has a lengthy history of all kinds of idiocy and anger. This sort of crap was inevitable, I think.

    I applaud those who are standing up to him now, and I’m disappointed that new divisions will likely arise from this. People chose to lie down with the dogs or carry the scorpion across the river on their backs or whatever other fable or saying you can think of, but if other people didn’t do silly things I’d be a lonely guy, since I do them all the time.

    I’ll be interested to see how this pans out.

    D

31. 31. Brooks Moses on Jul 16th, 2008 at 12:56 am

    Helix is, I would presume, a paying market? Given that it’s an online-only publication, this non-exclusive right to web-publish in perpetuity is what they have paid for, and is a thing of considerable value to them insofar as encouraging their future revenue stream of donations.

    Thus, it seems to me that it’s not at all surprising that Helix is asking for a payment here. If we contend that publication rights have value, then this is effectively a case where the authors have sold Helix something and are asking for its return. For authors to expect a right to obtain that return merely for the asking is as absurd as it would be for the local car dealer to decide they don’t like me owning one of their cars, and expect me to return it at their whim without getting my money back.

    This seems, from some of the comments here, the original post, and what I’m reading into PNH’s link-text when he posted this as a particle on Making Light (”Exciting new business models in the e-publishing realm!”), to be an unpopular view. I assume that means I’m missing something. What am I missing? (Are they, perhaps, buying these stories from professional authors for something less than $40/story? That would seem a quite remarkable business model indeed, regardless of take-back fees!)

32. 32. Wyman Cooke on Jul 16th, 2008 at 5:10 am

    Brooks: Yes and no. Helix is a PayPal-contributions webzine. In other words this is more shareware on the honor system than anything else. There are no subscriptions as such. Contributors share in whatever the issue brings in. There’s no payment in advance. It is mainly invitation only to established writers.

    I imagine there will be fewer and fewer of those invitations accepted if, as recent posts suggest, he keeps flailing around.

    So to charge $40 dollars to remove a story that they got for free originally smacks of Preditors and Editors territory.

33. 33. bellatrys on Jul 16th, 2008 at 5:48 am

    Derryl, most of the authors who were burnt by this had no idea of Sanders’ bigotry. I hardly knew Helix existed, and had no inside knowledge of Sanders at all, and this is true of most people discussing this on LJ (there’s much to be said about self-styled Big Fish in *very* small and unconnected fishponds, but that’s another snark for another day.)

    Yes, the SF publishing insiders and people who had personal dealings with him did, but most readers/potential authors only knew about Helix (if they did know) from its official presence, and the writers who had been threatened or burnt by him before weren’t talking out of fear or shame, and only came forward after this all became a much more condusive environment towards criticising an Alpha Male.

    This is why the long pro history of tolerating abusers and closing ranks, “don’t air our dirty laundry in public” around the racists and/or sexists, is such a bad thing - it doesn’t just enable the bullies to go on bullying, it doesn’t just let it get so bad that it explodes in public, onstage, and shames the whole fandom community - the policy of concealment makes it impossible for the rank-and-file, those of us who aren’t on the inner circles, to *know* and thus *shun* or *condemn* these people, until they do erupt in public.

    Dave Neiwert at Orcinus has been blogging for years on how tolerating bigots in the mundane community emboldens them and tells everyone that this IS the acceptable community standard, that there is going to be no help from the “nice, decent” majority. But - as those of us in the Archdiocese of Boston can tell only too well - the policy of covering up offenders’ offenses and lying to protect a community’s self-image can work for years, to thwart the rank-and-file who would be outraged and denounce them (and cease to contribute fiscally) if they only knew.

34. 34. bellatrys on Jul 16th, 2008 at 5:59 am

    I mean, look at all the big names in SF who didn’t know that Vox Day was a raging bigot until *after* he got put on the Nebula Awards committee - I knew it, and scads of other fans and non-fans alike knew it, because I read the humorous liberal political blogs and ol’ Vox had been “discovered” a year or two earlier for his frothing anti-suffrage rants and incoherent macho chestpounding (and familial association with WND, and credential puffery, and posing for author pictures with an oh-so-phallic broadsword, without any irony) but Dr. Asaro frex wasn’t aware of it.

    There are lots of Venn Sets of personal connections out there and some of them don’t overlap directly but only thru intermediaries (at least until someone links them in a public post.)

35. 35. pio on Jul 16th, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Well, you know, you could always get Andrew Burt to send him a DMCA notice, but that might lead to and apocalypse due to excessive irony.

    More seriously, any legal wrangling will cost the fellow more than 40$ a pop. If you wanted to pay him 40$ to get your story pulled down, and then sent him something - anything - that required a lawyery response, you’d know for sure that he wouldn’t profit from that 40$. On the other hand, that’s pure barratry, and quite illegal, not to mention immoral.

36. 36. Kate Nepveu on Jul 16th, 2008 at 8:50 am

    Brooks Moses @ #31: see also Chrononautic Log on professionalism.

    bellatrys @ #33-34: excellent points. I know Sanders *now*, but despite having gone to a couple of Worldcons and such, never heard of him or Helix before.

37. 37. Nick Mamatas on Jul 16th, 2008 at 9:32 am

    It’s worth noting that the defenders of the $40 charge seem to know nothing about the magazine. Facts are these:

    Sanders offered to take down the first stories (by NK Jemison) which were removed without first being asked, and the Jemison stories were replaced with what was essentially both a sexist insult and a lie: “Story deleted at author’s pantiwadulous request.” Sanders own words demonstrates that Jemison did not originally request that the stories be taken down: Wait, wait; this was originally MY suggestion. One person, whose excellent
    work had graced the pages of Helix on two occasions, had voiced such strong sentiments that I wrote to her and, among other things, offered to delete her stories from the archives if she felt that way about it. (Perhaps you find the distinction jejune, but Sanders doesn’t, at least not when talking in his own newsgroup to the ten people who still give two shits about him.)

    Sanders then agreed to take down a second story (by Yoon Ha Lee), citing Helix policy: authors are able to have their stories removed without fuss. Sanders then made a bit of a fuss, castigating the story — the story he bought, mind you — as nonsensical and a mere Affirmative Action acquisition. The story was replaced with the “pantiwadulous” slam again, though at least time the generic insult was accurate insofar as it was a request.

    After a third author asked for the material to be removed, volunteer webmaster Melanie Fletcher whined about all the work, and then Sanders came up with the idea of charging $40 for removal. However:

    1. Fletcher had apparently never billed Helix for anything, previously, as her own comment about “teetering” on sending out her bills suggests

    2. Fletcher isn’t spending any amount of time taking down the stories in any real way — all the now-lame links to the stories lead to either a 404 or the pantiwadulous insult (”pantiwadulous” was taken down yesterday; it seems to be back up on three of the deleted pages as of 10:14AM EDT); the biographical notes have been deleted but the blank spaces remain, etc.

    3. Fletcher isn’t using best practices to maintain a dynamic website — if it’s taking her an hour to delete files (and apparently multiple days to clean up lame links and such), it is because the website is designed to be essentially static, not because deleting the files are at all labor intensive. Maybe she’s sandbagging, maybe she’s incompetent, maybe that’s the best she can do — which explains why she is only charging $40 an hour when a decent webbie can get action for three times that easily, who knows.

    So, does Helix rate $40 to take down the stories? Not by any metric I can figure out. Yes, the magazine is within its rights to deny requests to remove stories, but had a long-standing policy of honoring all such requests. A new policy of replacing the stories with sexist insult and lies was formulated in response to the recent rush of such requests. Perhaps needless to say, to the extent that authors are stakeholders in the success of the magazines in which they published, it may be wise to disassociate from a magazine run so incompetently as to replace the text of stories with dumb insults, all while keeping the links to the stories live and active. Imagine clicking on a link promising, oh “Story by Arthur C. Clarke” and instead of getting the story you get a single line: “The old homo is dead now.”

    Perhaps if Helix had more than a handful of readers, they’d actually care about their content more than tweaking a few writers in a way that may just give Sanders his first erection in a decade or two. (”Oooh, young lady panties…”)

    There’s nothing “absurd” about believing that Helix would actually stay true to its own policies of taking down stories upon request or that it would not replace story text with insults and inaccuracies. Well, except insofar as it was obvious from the get-go that Helix was simply an ego-project designed to circle-jerk its way into competition for awards.

38. 38. Brooks Moses on Jul 16th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    Wyman @32: Ah, indeed. That makes things make a lot more sense than what I was assuming about Helix being a proper paying market. (Well, it makes the objections to the fee make more sense, and Sanders’s levying of it make less, I mean.) Thank you for answering my question. I had also not previously seen it clearly stated that “free removal at author’s request” was a long-standing explicitly-stated policy, rather than something created for the first couple of objections in the recent kerfluffle; if that were something clearly part of the agreement when the stories were submitted, that changes things too.

    Kate @35, Nick @36: For my own comment, I should make clear that I was only talking about the levying of the fee (and based on hypothetical assumptions about Helix’s pay rates, which turn out to be erroneous). The — to me — separate question of the appropriateness of the editorial communication around this fee is something else entirely, and I never meant to appear to be defending it!

39. 39. bellatrys on Jul 16th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

    Kate, I’m not personally very “active” in “real life” fandom (being poor) but my congoing flist mostly doesn’t know Sanders either, so you’re not alone in that - and neither do my people-reading-sf for longer than some of us have been alive. I *think* the only reason I know about the existence of Helix is having seen it mentioned and linked in last years discussion of submissions bias, and the slushbomb campaign, bookmarked it but for whatever reason didn’t end up reading much there. And in my offline gossip with people active IRL fandom, Sanders wasn’t one of the names that came up in an OH JOHN RINGO NO way (tho’ Ringo *was* as it happens…)

    I guess I’m really *most* boggled (bigot eruptions being fairly common, alas) by the fact that it’s SOP and okay in pro circles to leave people’s stories up in an archive after they ask to have them taken down - that is just *so* gauche and verboten in fanfic circles (it happens fairly regularly that someone no longer wants to be associated with a group for whatever reason) and any fic archive that either refused or charged blackmail would be hammered across fandoms for it!

40. 40. Nick Mamatas on Jul 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    Well those fanfic sites aren’t contracting for non-exclusive rights in perpetuity.

    Sanders has every right to keep the stories up, and every right to change his policies at a moment’s notice. Such behaviors just brand him as a shitheel trying desperately to remain relevant to SF years after even sinking to the vanity press level.

41. 41. bellatrys on Jul 16th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Well, yes, and so too don’t the fic archives have the right to take down anyone’s stories, if the maintainers get in a flamewar with the authors, or decide that they don’t want to deal with setting up a Mature Readers section, or think that slash is gross, or whatever. That also happens.

    I also have the right to serve my dinner guests beetles and mealworms and kick them out of my house if they complain.

    But you *do* that kind of thing, sooner or later you won’t *have* any authors. Or customers. Or friends.

    (Frankly, I’m not sure what legal recourse a fanfic author would have in re dealing with an archive that wouldn’t honor a request to remove a story, because there was no contract involved to begin with. But social pressure has usually been enough, like with fandom plagiarism cases - though again, it turned out with Cassie Edwards that professional fiction publishing has had a different attitude…!)

42. 42. Derryl Murphy on Jul 16th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    A good analysis, Nick. And I think the fact that the word “pantawadulous” was used pretty much rules out Melanie having much of anything to do with those first removals, which makes me question the $40 charge even more.

    And I’ll take back what I said about people not knowing. I know for a fact that some who sold to Helix knew well enough, but there are plenty of others who probably didn’t. Lucky them, they now know what I knew all along.

    D

43. 43. Luke Jackson on Jul 16th, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    Sanders has attempted to elucidate his position here:

    http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&group=sff.people.sanders&artnum=84840

44. 44. rydra_wong on Jul 17th, 2008 at 5:36 am

    Luke: no, that was before he decided that he was going to charge $40.

    Which was before the latest rant in which he announces that “tough shit”, nobody gets to remove their stories at all:

    http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&artid=%3C487ea44b.0@news.sff.net%3E

45. 45. mythago on Jul 28th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

    I wouldn’t assume that the “we’ll take it down for $40″ promise would be honored, either. People of this sort have a habit of crowing whaddayagonnado, SUE me?! knowing that to virtually everyone, even small-claims court isn’t worth the cost and you’ll never collect from them anyway.

    Collecting stories elsewhere strikes me as a fine idea, particularly as it has the effect of removing attention from Helix–and attention is clearly all Sanders wants.

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