From a Guardian report. The plan is, apparently, pretty simple: commit a massively heinous crime, go through a highly publicised trial, and then write a book about it and sell it for a huge advance from an international publisher. Or so it seemed with the government in the UK planning to introduce a new legislation to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes.
Publishers' response have been that the plan is unfeasible and that it is an attack on free speech. There are no details on the form the said legislation would take, except that it would be an "introduction of a UK-wide civil scheme for the recovery of profits from criminal memoirs."
Reportedly this would not affect serial hostage-taker, Charlie Bronson, convicted Northern Ireland terrorist 'Mad Dog' Jonny Adair, (reformed) armed robber, John McVicar, and (former) drug smuggler Howard Marks, with the last two becoming respected authors, because Ministry of Justice has said 'that the scheme would be unlikely to attempt to retrieve profits retrospectively'.
Publishers have accused the government of imposing "... another squeeze on freedom of expression" adding that, "... the truth is that many people who have committed a crime have been rehabilitated by being able to write" and that it would "set a highly dangerous precedent for state control of publishing..."
Simon Juden, chief executive of the Publisher's Association, says "Clearly no one wants really bad people to make lots of money from their crimes, but equally it is helpful for society to understand criminality and criminal behaviour. The second point is that some of the most potentially offensive stuff wouldn't come from people convicted of something. For example, Nelson Mandela couldn't publish stuff because he was convicted of a crime, but OJ Simpson could, because he wasn't. It's possibly targeting the wrong people."
No comments:
Post a Comment