Fifty Shades of Grey XXX "Adaptation" (VIDEO)

Adult video maker Smash Pictures put out a "XXX adaptation" of Fifty Shades of Grey last year, and were promptly sued by Universal Studios. (Universal won the auction for the Fifty Shades of Grey film rights.) Smash Pictures, however, has now countersued, claiming that Fifty Shades of Grey is "in the public domain" because it was first published as fan fiction.

"On information and belief, as much as 89% of the content of the allegedly copyrighted materials grew out of a multi-part series of fan fiction called Masters of the Universe based on Stephenie Myer's (sic) Twilight novels," the countersuit claims. "On information and belief, this content was published online between 2009 and 2011 in various venues, including fanfiction.net and the person website of Ericka (sic) Leonard. On information and belief, much or all of this material was placed in the public domain."

Of course, that's a bunch of BS. Just because something is published online does not mean it is "in the public domain." Smash Pictures is going to have their (bare) asses handed to them in court. But, hey, this gives us all a chance to laugh at the trailer...

Don't worry, the video is safe for work (except for some really terrible dialogue, which is actually dialogue taken directly from E.L. James' books).

(via Hollywood Reporter)

Welcome to "Literary Rogue"!

What happened to EvilReads.com?

Well, I got tired of explaining that it wasn't a horror website. It was supposed to be a take on Goodreads, but too many people expected it to have something to do with horror novels.

So it's been rebranded "Literary Rogue," after my latest book, Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors.

Enjoy!

— Andrew

P.S. Ideally, my website would be something like AndrewShaffer.com, but honestly? No one can spell fucking "Shaffer" correctly.

P.P.S. For a short period, I changed the site name to "This Merkin Life." Then I was alerted to the fact that This American Life has take legal action over some podcasts that play off their name, and I don't have the time or energy to deal with that. So.

Poets & Writers

“This is going to sound very meta, but when I need a kick in the pants I like to read author interviews. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than eavesdropping on another writer talking shop. Writing books is oftentimes a solitary, lonely process. Authors discussing their own processes gives me a sense of connectedness to a larger community that extends hundreds of years into the past. It’s helpful to know you’re not alone."

— from a short interview over at Poets and Writers

Creative Commoners Podcast

I recently recorded a podcast with the fine folks over at Creative Commoners. We chatted about pen names, Twitter, Patton Oswalt, and my new book, Literary Rogues.

Listen online or download!

The New Hemingway and Fitzgeralds

Sometimes I wish novelists shouted out their own names in their books like rappers. "Fitzgerald!" "Plath!" No? Okay, that's probably a stupid idea.

I do love that "No Church In the Wild" was used in one of the Great Gatsby 3D trailers. Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Beyonce are the 21st century Hemingway and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Continue reading more about the music that inspired Literary Rogues at Largehearted Boy's Book Notes blog!

(photo courtesy of Tara L. Conley/Creative Commons)