Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I have no shortage of unattractive qualities. One of these unattractive qualities is my inability to walk away from an argument when I think I’m right. Another is the fact that I’m always right. You can imagine the trouble this causes.

But sometimes this stubbornness pays dividends, in the form of a full and frank exchange of views that actually gets to the heart of some important matter or other.

This is the story of just such an exchange.

On Monday afternoon, Tim Worstall, author of 2005: Blogged (The Friday Project), forwarded me an email from Michael Bywater - journalist, broadcaster and author of (amongst others) Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did It Go? (Granta). Tim had previously asked Michael whether he would permit him to use a post from his blog in 2005: Blogged.

There would be no money payable (for reasons that will be explained below), simply a decent credit in the book, and copyright in the piece would remain with Michael. Michael had asked whether we - as publishers - might vary those terms for him, on the basis that he was a professional writer and so didn’t want to give us such a blanket right of publication, across all territories. We refused, for reasons which - again - will become apparent below. As a result Michael’s piece isn’t in the book. A shame.

Despite this, though, Michael very kindly told Tim he would consider writing a review of the book and asked for a review copy to be sent to him. Tim duly forwarded Michael’s request to me.

There was just one problem. Tim forgot to delete the part of Michael’s original message where he told Tim he wasn’t surprised by our refusal to vary the terms of our request to use his words in Blogged.

The exact words he used were...

‘I’ve met too many of the greedy unethical cocksuckers in my life to believe otherwise. Bet they didn’t ask the printers to do it for free, though.’
Ha!

Now of course what I should have done is to ignore it and walk away. The message wasn’t meant to be seen by me. It was between Michael and Tim. None of my business. Walk away, Paul. He’s not worth it.

Ha!

What followed would have remained a matter between Michael and I, were it not for Michael’s very generous, and quite inspired, suggestion that we make it public. Not just because it’s quite amusing to watch two grown men fight, but also because we’d like it to be a springboard for an on-going, wider debate on the value of intellectual property, particularly in what we laughingly call the ‘Internet age’. So below you’ll find my reply to Michael. In a couple of days I’ll post Michael’s reply to my reply. And we’ll see how it goes from there.

From a personal point of view, I hope it also explains to other 2005: Blogged contributors why we produced the book in the way we did.
Do feel free to fire any comments, opinions or other two-penneths to vox@thefridayproject.co.uk.

Here goes, with my original unsolicited message to Michael, who I’d (personally) never had any previous contact with... (the message was also copied to Tim - which seemed the right thing to do)

...

Hi Tim and Michael,

‘I’ve met too many of the greedy unethical cocksuckers in my life to believe otherwise. Bet they didn’t ask the printers to do it for free, though.’
I realise that gatecrashing someone else’s e-conversation is a terrible breach of netiquette but I noticed the above at the bottom of the email that Tim forwarded and couldn’t let it pass uncommented. I don’t think I’ve ever been described as a greedy unethical cocksucker before. At least not all at once, by the same person.

As it happens, since you ask, we didn’t ask the printers to print the Blogged book for free. There are a couple of reasons for this...

1) They are a business who make all of their money from printing and as such have nothing to gain by providing that service for free when they could expend the same resources doing it for money for someone else.

2) The comparison is absolutely ludicrous.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that the blog posts that make up the Blogged book already existed and had been posted online by their authors - who are by and large not professional writers - free of charge. We didn’t commission the pieces.

When we originally conceived the book we thought long and hard about how we could best compensate those involved. We soon realised that if we had to pay market rates (or any rates at all) to all of the hundred-or-so contributors we simply wouldn’t have been able to publish a book that, at best, has two months of sales before it becomes out of date. We’re a brand new publishing house who are publishing three books this year - we’re hardly making a penny on Blogged but we’re spending a third of our publishing budget on it because we genuinely want to introduce people to the great writing that exists online.

Fuck knows, I’ve enthused about bloggers in my Guardian column for long enough - it’s nice to be able to help them get a bigger audience. If we were even half as cynical as you seem to assume then we’d forget the bloggers and spend our money on books about sex, or wizards.

The thing is, Michael, you’re a professional writer so you don’t need any extra exposure for your work. And you’re lucky enough to get paid for your words. The vast majority of contributors to the book aren’t that fortunate. Having their work featured - under a non-exclusive licence - in Blogged is a really good way for them to get their words read and hopefully secure paid writing gigs. And that’s exactly why almost all of the people who Tim approached were happy to agree to feature in the book on the terms we offered.

Everyone who did any actual work specifically for the book - Tim as Editor, the designers and - yes - even the printers - were (or will be) paid, either in cash or through royalties. And, as it happens, given the tiny margins we operate on combined with the very short sales period, they’ll all get more money than we will. Hardly greedy.

The reason we wouldn’t vary the terms for you is that we wouldn’t vary them for anyone. Everybody in the book is contributing on the same basis - no money, none exclusive licence, with full credit. To change that just because someone is a professional writer would be unfair on those who are just happy to get some extra awareness of their talent. Hardly unethical.

And as for cocksuckers - now that’s just namecalling. You judgemental little prick.

Seriously though, have a look at our site, particularly our own blog and see if you still think we’re as bad of the other publishers you’ve met. If you do then I’d really, genuinely be interested to hear what you think we should be doing differently.

Otherwise, I hope the above allays some of your concerns. I remain a fan of your work.

Best regards,

Paul

...

I’ll post Michael’s reply in a day or so.

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