Stallman agreed to the
interview without making a second inquiry into the
status issue. Shortly after the first interview, I
raced to set up a second interview (this one in Kihei),
squeezing it in before Stallman headed off on a 14-day
vacation to Tahiti.
It was during Stallman's vacation that the bad news
came from Tracy. Her company's legal department didn't
want to adjust its copyright notice on the e-books.
Readers who wanted to make their books transferable
would either have to crack the encryption code or
convert the book to an open format such as HTML. Either
way, the would be breaking the law and facing criminal penalties.
With two fresh interviews under my belt, I didn't see
any way to write the book without resorting to the new
material. I quickly set up a trip to New York to meet
with my agent and with Tracy to see if there was a
compromise solution.
When I flew to New York, I met my agent, Henning
Guttman. It was our first face-to-face meeting, and
Henning seemed pessimistic about our chances of forcing
a compromise, at least on the publisher's end.
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