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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 4, whole no. 27, April 1942

Page 20

20                                                                 SPACEWAYS
[Centered] EMERGENCY FLARE

off the mimeo and hekto, although the latter may possibly go mimeoed soon, also. 
A fine feud seems to be brewing between the editors of [underlined] Nebula and those of [underlined] Fantasy Fiction Field Weekly. Let's hope it doesn't develop any further, for its beginning was over a matter that won't change the course of events to come, and it seems rather silly to fight over it. After all, there's no reason why there should be blood-thirsty relations between news weeklies in the fan field. No one publication can hope to cover all the fan and pro news, no matter how much time and effort is spent on newsgathering. The contents of two weeklies will therefore vary to a certain extent, and if both are decent publications, most fans will buy both. Moreover, [underlined] Nebula and [underlined] FFF Weekly don't conflict so very much. [underlined] Nebula is very definitely and avowedly intended to provide news of fan-dom, fans, and fanzines, and pays no great attention to the professional maga-zines. [underlined] FFF Weekly publishes little fan news, and concentrates on the profes-sional magazines and writers. The better appearance of [underlined] Nebula is blanced by the photos which [underlined] FFF Weekley uses in most issues. Either Lowndes or Unger was a bit scathing in his denunciation of an item plainly marked as "rumor" in [underlined] Nebula, and Restebar wasn't exactly prudent to publish a very unsubtle remark about "sloppily produced news magazines" in an unsigned column in [underlined] Nebula. So--why not kiss and make up, before the thing develops any further?
I haven't seen any definite word yet about the influence of the ruling on publicizing reprints as reprints and its effect on [each title underlined] Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Future Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly, Capt. Future, and Startling Stories. Offhand, one would think that it applies with equal force to all magazines with reprint stories, and Harry Jenkins, Jr., has states that Lowdnes has stopped using Cummings reprints because of it. However, Don Thompson says that he isn't so sure. Speaking of the text of the entire ruling, which takes up a page and a half of small print, he says: "Now, that would appear to apply to all reprint mags, like [underlined] FFM and [underlined] SFQ, but it may not, because they have never been guilty of the practices for which Silberkleit and Columbia were sued. [underlined] SFQ and [underlined] FFM have never concealed that they used reprints. Columbia was printing 'All stories new' across the face of his mags, changing titles, characters' names, and au-thors' names; and using magazine titles similar to those of bona fide mags using only new material. He was also listing fake copyrights. None of those things were previously specifically barred, and [underlined] Writer's Digest, Street and Smith, Ed-itors Terrill and Steeger, the Author's League, and various other individuals and organizations have been working for years to get them stopped. Finally they have been. Whether the ruling will be applied to legitimate reprint public-ations, I don't know. However, it might not be so bad, at that. They could say, in large type, 'Reprinted by Popular Request' or something to that effect. That seems to go over pretty well; and, in fact, it is true of most of the stuff in [underlined] FEM and [underlined] Startling. I think the ruling could be applied to them, but probably won't be, since they were never guilty of the specific infractions charged against Columbia (and some others, also mentioned)." 
But [undecipherable] as this stencil was being cut, another letter arrived from DBT and throws more light on the matter. (This paragraph is being stenciled without any previous dummy, and I fear the worst for the right-hand margins!) He says that the new issue of [underlined] Writer's Digest contains some more stuff on the same subject--including a rebuttal from Silberkleit himself, one of the defendants. He is the top man at Columbia, which puts out [underlined] Future and [underlined] SFQ. Columbia was reorganized in 1940, to conform with the new requirements, and according to Silberkleit has been made to be a sort of goat; and Columbia recently won a lawsuit against Popular Pubs (which issue Norton's magazine) for issuing a magazine with a title too closely resembling one of Columbia's titles. Futhermore, according to [each title underlined] WD, Fam-ous Fantastic Mysteries and Captain Future are about to be sued for the lack of prominence which they announce the fact that their reprint stories are re-prints. Don also says that a note appeared in [underlined] WD stating that Miss Gnaedinger, of [underlined] FFM, is "seriously hunting for suitable new manuscripts for use in [underlined] FFM" , which may be significant. It looks like a nice exciting summer!

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20 SPACEWAYS [Centered] EMERGENCY FLARE off the mimeo and hekto, although the latter may possibly go mimeoed soon, also. A fine feud seems to be brewing between the editors of [underlined] Nebula and those of [underlined] Fantasy Fiction Field Weekly. Let's hope it doesn't develop any further, for its beginning was over a matter that won't change the course of events to come, and it seems rather silly to fight over it. After all, there's no reason why there should be blood-thirsty relations between news weeklies in the fan field. No one publication can hope to cover all the fan and pro news, no matter how much time and effort is spent on newsgathering. The contents of two weeklies will therefore vary to a certain extent, and if both are decent publications, most fans will buy both. Moreover, [underlined] Nebula and [underlined] FFF Weekly don't conflict so very much. [underlined] Nebula is very definitely and avowedly intended to provide news of fan-dom, fans, and fanzines, and pays no great attention to the professional maga-zines. [underlined] FFF Weekly publishes little fan news, and concentrates on the profes-sional magazines and writers. The better appearance of [underlined] Nebula is blanced by the photos which [underlined] FFF Weekley uses in most issues. Either Lowndes or Unger was a bit scathing in his denunciation of an item plainly marked as "rumor" in [underlined] Nebula, and Restebar wasn't exactly prudent to publish a very unsubtle remark about "sloppily produced news magazines" in an unsigned column in [underlined] Nebula. So--why not kiss and make up, before the thing develops any further? I haven't seen any definite word yet about the influence of the ruling on publicizing reprints as reprints and its effect on [each title underlined] Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Future Fiction, Science Fiction Quarterly, Capt. Future, and Startling Stories. Offhand, one would think that it applies with equal force to all magazines with reprint stories, and Harry Jenkins, Jr., has states that Lowdnes has stopped using Cummings reprints because of it. However, Don Thompson says that he isn't so sure. Speaking of the text of the entire ruling, which takes up a page and a half of small print, he says: "Now, that would appear to apply to all reprint mags, like [underlined] FFM and [underlined] SFQ, but it may not, because they have never been guilty of the practices for which Silberkleit and Columbia were sued. [underlined] SFQ and [underlined] FFM have never concealed that they used reprints. Columbia was printing 'All stories new' across the face of his mags, changing titles, characters' names, and au-thors' names; and using magazine titles similar to those of bona fide mags using only new material. He was also listing fake copyrights. None of those things were previously specifically barred, and [underlined] Writer's Digest, Street and Smith, Ed-itors Terrill and Steeger, the Author's League, and various other individuals and organizations have been working for years to get them stopped. Finally they have been. Whether the ruling will be applied to legitimate reprint public-ations, I don't know. However, it might not be so bad, at that. They could say, in large type, 'Reprinted by Popular Request' or something to that effect. That seems to go over pretty well; and, in fact, it is true of most of the stuff in [underlined] FEM and [underlined] Startling. I think the ruling could be applied to them, but probably won't be, since they were never guilty of the specific infractions charged against Columbia (and some others, also mentioned)." But [undecipherable] as this stencil was being cut, another letter arrived from DBT and throws more light on the matter. (This paragraph is being stenciled without any previous dummy, and I fear the worst for the right-hand margins!) He says that the new issue of [underlined] Writer's Digest contains some more stuff on the same subject--including a rebuttal from Silberkleit himself, one of the defendants. He is the top man at Columbia, which puts out [underlined] Future and [underlined] SFQ. Columbia was reorganized in 1940, to conform with the new requirements, and according to Silberkleit has been made to be a sort of goat; and Columbia recently won a lawsuit against Popular Pubs (which issue Norton's magazine) for issuing a magazine with a title too closely resembling one of Columbia's titles. Futhermore, according to [each title underlined] WD, Fam-ous Fantastic Mysteries and Captain Future are about to be sued for the lack of prominence which they announce the fact that their reprint stories are re-prints. Don also says that a note appeared in [underlined] WD stating that Miss Gnaedinger, of [underlined] FFM, is "seriously hunting for suitable new manuscripts for use in [underlined] FFM" , which may be significant. It looks like a nice exciting summer!