Cory Doctorow's 'I, Robot' Posted

maxentius writes "A bunch of new stuff has been posted to The Infinite Matrix , reports editor Eileen Gunn, including a new 15,000- word short story from Cory Doctorow entitled 'I, Robot.' Other new additions include material from Howard Waldrop and Patrick O'Leary."

Re:I'm writing Cory Doctorow's Biography

[OzRoy]

Well it's a trick that seemed to work for Isaac Asimov. The original "I, Robot" was a short story written by Eando Binder. Isaac Asimov was apparently appaled when he learned that his collection was going to be renamed from "Mind and Iron" to "I, Robot".

Re:IP

[Eric Giguere]

If the Asimov estate sued, he'd just have to point them to the issue of Asimov's where Isaac himself stated that you can't copyright titles. Now, an argument could be made for trademarking titles in certain circumstances, but in general a title doesn't qualify for protection.

References:

• Copyright protection not available for names, titles, or short phrases [copyright.gov]
• Protection of literary titles [publaw.com]

Eric
Vioxx recall reduces spam [ericgiguere.com] (humor)
JavaScript is not Java! [ericgiguere.com] (serious)

Neat Idea - shame about the writing

[samael]

I do like the way he's dissected some of the ideas in Asimov.

It's just a shame his writing style is stilted and ungainly.

I've liked bit of his writing, and a fair few of his ideas, but a great writer he aint.

Re:cool robot scultpture

[taaloos]

From BoingBoing [boingboing.net]:

Today, Infinite Matrix magazine published the latest of these, a story called "I, Robot," which describes the police state that would have to obtain if you were going to have a world where there was only one kind of robot allowed and only one company was allowed to make it.

Re:Catchy Title... FB!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The word robot comes from the Czech word for labor. This is Old Europe! FB!!!

Re:Neat Idea - shame about the writing

[FreeUser]

I do like the way he's dissected some of the ideas in Asimov.

It's just a shame his writing style is stilted and ungainly.

I've liked bit of his writing, and a fair few of his ideas, but a great writer he aint.

Give him time. He may not be a [insert your favorite author here], but writing styles do tend to improve with time and practice. Try reading some of the early drafts of famouse authors' early works, and you get the idea.

The reason for the I, Robot title

[Anonymous Coward]

From his interview at Locus magazine:
http://www.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/01Doctorow.htm l [locusmag.com]

"I gave up short story writing for a while when I started writing novels (which I think every writer does), but I've started doing it again. What spurred me to it was Bradbury going crazy about Fahrenheit 9/11, saying Michael Moore was a crook for having stolen his title. For a champion of free expression, in the original Fahrenheit 451, to assert that the person who comes up with the meme has the right to control the condition as to who can riff on that meme is not just ironic, it's ludicrous! So I started writing a whole batch of new stories that had the same titles as famous science fiction. I've finished an 'Anda's Game' and an 'I, Robot' and my next one might be a 'Jeffty Is Five'. Ellison's original 'Jeffty' is an anti-technological story -- Harlan's an antitechnological guy. He told us at Clarion that we should get offline and stop screwing around (the best advice I ever ignored). I'm just going to play with that for a while and see how it goes. Let a thousand 'Nightfall's bloom!"

Re:Neat Idea - shame about the writing

[blastedtokyo]

I'm not so convinced. I saw him speak a couple of times. He always spoke like he was reading (and not reading well). It was quite disturbing actually to hear someone so praised come across sounding so much like a kid in junior high who couldn't lift their eyes off of the page to look at their audience.

The saddest part is just how angry this guy always comes across. I really hope it's just an act, otherwise he'll probably have a heart attack by the time he's 40.

Titles are not easily protectable

[saddino]

For those who might be interested:

Names titles and short literary phrases are not protected by copyright. Single literary titles are also not necessarily protected by trademark.

However, as with most law, there are cases where a title can be protected (unfair competition, trademark common law if the title has acquired secondary meaning).

The rash of teen movies that are simply titled by appropriating the name of a popular song should be evidence of this enough. ;-)

To clear up some possible confusion.

[Celestial Avenger]

The original title for the book was to be "Mind and Iron." Martin Greenberg, however, rejected that title and suggested the book be called "I, Robot." Asimov cringed at this idea because in 1938 Eando Binder wrote a short story called "I, Robot," and felt that he was stealing from another author. Mr. Greenberg "colorfully" dismissed this ill placed loyalty and the title was changed. Some years later there was a televison play of Binder's robot story and several fans wrote Asimov about some joker who stole his title. Asimov, being a man of honor, wrote back to each of them explaining the situation. Postage was a lot cheaper back then.

I, Robot [asimovians.com]