h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Posted 12 Minutes Ago by Felonious Monk: Piano Thief Remember this? A3477927 Well, it's made it's way into a radio program. And an awful lot of it, as it happens: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/songseverlasting To be fair, I got a posting saying that the guy wanted me to call him back. But I left a question for him asking him if he wanted to use the material at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F1983539?thread=593846#p48042890 . I didn't get a reply. I think I have a right to feel slightly aggrieved. Christ, even that line about 'the very embodiment of hwyl, the Welsh love of homeland and culture' made it into the program verbatim!

My suspicion (sp?) has long been that the BBC might be tempted to use these "blog" sites as a resource to feed its journalistic output. It would make sense to the taxpayer. Hence the copyright thing when we signed up.

Bryn will get a letter from me.

I'm guessing he didn't realise that you were the author of the original. This is where the "researched by" and "Edited by" are confusing to an outsider.

Did either of you read the entry and then listen to the program? And spot the similarities?

I should emphasise that only a small part of me feels *slightly* aggrieved. The rest of me is quite flattered in fact.

I can't do streaming media at work any more so I can't listen here.

(Well not without a bit of fiddling around with a few filters, and its not worth the risk.)

It's 4.00 AM here. Where the hell do you work?

I work in a datacentre supporting various clients including health services, financial, government departments, and financial institutions - I've just been sorting out a failed download from a remote server for a water company.

I must go back to bed. Insomnia is not a good thing.

Good idea - wish I could join you. Though obviously not in the same bed !

Oh please. Not in front of the children. Who do you people think you are - Eric and Ernie?

*checks legs*

non-hairy

Did you call the number on there? TV/radio reseachers never come back to look at the responses to messages they leave on message boards. When I worked for iVillage, it's one of the reasons they were removed. It's just rude, apart from the free advertising for their crappy programmes!

Unfortunately it's in the terms they can do what they want with our content, but Mark (I think) did used to say that they never would without permission, or speaking to the author. Or maybe he said it was unlikely. I can't remember now.

I think you should make a lot of noise about this to the radio producers though.

I didn't call the number: I meant to, but other things kept on cropping up and getting in the way every time I remembered to do it.

However, that's not the point. The point is that there are remarkable simlarities between the material in the program and in my Guide Entry. I have no problems with this per se, I don't even want a credit at the end of it, but a simple 'thank you' would have been nice.

Also, I gather in publishing here I have given the *BBC* a non-exclusive license to use my material. This program was produced by an independent company *for* the BBC. If it were produced by the BBC, then I could listen to the program whenever I wanted on the Internet. As it happens, I can't, so what exactly am I getting out of this?

I did, however, relish the chance to listen to the definitive version of the hymn:
'Victor Me-el-drew, Victor Me-el-drew
He can stick it up his bum
(Up his buuuuuuum)
He can bugger off 'til Kingdom Come!'

Ah now, if it's not made by the BBC then you have a case of copyright theft.

Call in the lawyers.

I had a look at the copyright agreement: we grant a 'sub-licensable' right for the BBC, so presumably they can give it to whomever they want to make a program.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree boyo bach. I've got cds by Bryn full of sleeve notes about this kind of stuff - it's as they say 'in the public domain' isn't it?
I went to school with Gareth Williams. I wonder if it's him?
I loved that NSPCC recording - blew my mind! I reckon DJ Beware or some such could/should remix that Bread of Heaven stuff to some tune.

Weeeeelll...yes and no. Certainly the stuff in my entry is about events/people/material in the public domain, but it's pretty plain that the legwork for some of that program was done (unwittingly) by Yours Truly. Would the Victor Meldrew version, the reference to 10,000 Instant Christians or that phrase about the embodiment of hwyl have ended up in the program if the entry had not been written? I doubt it. Still, read the entry, listen to the program, and decide for yourself.

To be honest, I have more important things to worry about.

Well, that's right Mr. Monk. Attend to the more important things. One time I racked my brains to come up with a totally unique 12 word competition cartoon caption, even putting in a code word so I knew it was mine, and lo and behold a Mrs. P. Green won a car with MY WORDS!!!! That really did pxxx me off at the time ... but I've become a tad philososphical and skeptical in my dotage. Now what was I attending to...ah yes, a swanky poem called CROW at http://ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com by some Welsh idiot who lives in my house.

Mrs. P Green being a convenient fiction of the competition organisers, I suppose?

Trouble is, unless you posted yourself a sealed letter with the competition and your entry in it, you'd have great difficulty proving it. Unlike the chap in 'Quiz Show'.

Interested by the poem, but thinks that perhaps the author ought to lay off the Ted Hughes for a while...

I like the rustic, the country yokel, in Ted Hughes. I've got a decent book somewhere with some fishy poems of Ted's in it - the struggling salmon etc.