Happy Paperback Publication Day to @jonnywaistcoat and FAMILY BUSINESS!
DEATH. IT’S A DIRTY BUSINESS.
When Diya Burman’s best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons – a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased.
Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people’s lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination. All is not as it seems with the Slough family. Why won’t they speak about their own recent loss? And who is the strange man that keeps turning up at their jobs?
If Diya’s not careful, she might just end up getting buried under the family tree. . .
'A triumph, thriving on relatable fears, hyper-realistic dirty homes, and understandable grief' - Fantasy Hive
'It completely blew me away' - FanFi Addict
'Don't read by yourself in a strange hotel room if you want to come out psychologically unscathed' - Me, specifically, learning lessons the hard way so that other people don't have to.
If you want a book that will:
Make you twitch at strange shapes outside the windows as the nights get darker
Break you in the smallest ways with the simplest observations of the meaning of humanity and love
Give you new and exciting things to be scared of that actually, on reflection, had probably always been lurking in the depths of your psyche just waiting to be called up
FAMILY BUSINESS is the book you want to grab.
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Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024
Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!
Mickey's Back!
Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?
Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance
will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.
Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.
Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular
Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?
And Tigger Too!
All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.
Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.
Other works:
Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up
Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.
Millions of Cats
The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.
All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928
for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker
Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain
For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got
Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered
Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain
Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music
While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.
Charleston by James P. Johnson
Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)
Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James
Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith
Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox
Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey
That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra
Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong
Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra
Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra
Enjoy your public domain works!
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List of “sweet and intimate actions which make me go feral and have me folding like a folding chair” prompts
Character B carding their fingers through Character A’s hair and playing with the strands.
Character B peeling back the neck of Character A’s turtle neck sweater to trail gentle kisses down their neck. (This!! It is so hot, and it's everything I didn't know I needed until now, and I cannot stop thinking about it wlkfnlkwe)
Character B placing their arm around Character A’s waist while in public, resting their chin on Character A’s shoulder. “Hello,” they say in a teasing tone as Character A tries to grab ahold of their hand to keep it there but fails a few times before successfully doing so.
Leaning against each other while in public.
Spooning and back hugs.
Character B letting Character A rest their head on their chest; lets them listen to their heart beat.
Character B whispering sweet nothings into Character A’s ear.
Character B checking in on Character A to make sure they’re comfortable and okay with the way things are going; to make sure they’re not being too much. “You’re not,” Character A would reassure, repositioning themselves to get closer to Character B.
Just cuddles and snuggles in general.
Neck kisses.
Kisses littered all over the face. (!!! It's one thing to read about it and one thing to experience it wlejbfewljn)
Character B tucking Character A’s head under their chin while they’re cuddling.
Character B nuzzling their neck and breathing in Character A’s scent/fragrance, and commenting on how nice they smell.
Character B making sure Character A gets home safe by driving them home.
Character A telling Character B to message them when they get back home safe, and once Character B gets home, they follow through by sending a message to let Character A know they’ve gotten back home safe.
Taking naps together, from day till night, waking up every now and then to get more snuggles in.
That soft exhalation of adoring laughter leaving Character B’s mouth after kissing Character A (this shit had me folding so fucking hard it’s not even funny. I Am Weak).
That soft exhalation of laughter once again just because Character B is so content with having Character A in their presence, and Character A just basking in how cute that sound is and how happy it makes them.
Character B entangling their legs with Character A’s, pressing their bodies flush against each other’s, leaving little to no space between them. (It’s almost like they can’t get enough of Character A.)
Kissing so many times, to the point where they lose track of how many times they’ve kissed already.
Holding hands and lacing their fingers together while they’re cuddling.
Comparing hand sizes and giggling about it together.
Character B stroking Character A’s hair while they’re asleep. (Or uh, pretends to be asleep DJSKKSKDSK but it’s so FUCKING CUTE WHEN HE DID THAT IM GONNA SCREAM, me thinking moments like these only happen in Korean dramas or some shit anfkakfksk-)
The sweet little banters in between; Character B being all cheesy and Character A playfully deflecting their comments only for Character B to playfully push back with an “Is something wrong with that?” or “But I’m not lying.”
Falling asleep in each other’s arms, both not wanting to leave the bed for the entire day and wanting to stay comfortably snuggled up against each other instead.
Character B placing their hands on Character A’s shoulders, and Character A, with a grin on their face, gently grabs Character B’s hands and wraps their arms around their neck while leaning back into them. Character B reciprocates by hugging them closer to them.
The soft noises of content Character A makes when they snuggle closer to Character B, or when they want Character B to hold them closer to them, with Character B happily obliging.
Character B rubbing their cheek against Character A’s.
Character B trying to not wake Character A up because they look so comfortable when sleeping. (His words, not mine.)
Soft, repeated pecks on the lips, causing Character A to laugh/smile against Character B’s lips.
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