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Comment by kozd | Hacker News Reader

Speaker for the Dead has a much better ring to it.

Yeah. There is empathy in “Speaker for the Dead” compared to “confessor” that sounded negative. May be it doesn’t sound negative to people following certain religions as confession is a way to absolve themselves.

I was wondering if someone else immediately made that connection.

Yeah, if he can I would use that over "Coffin Confessor". There is a clear difference in what he is doing verse in the books.

To anyone that doesn't get the reference, the book "Speaker for the Dead" is the next book after Ender's Game and in my opinion is the best book in the series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_(novel_series)

Even for those who haven't read any of the series but the first one (eg me), "Speaker for the Dead" is a job/title that the protagonist of Ender's Game takes up at the end of the book.

I did, but this seems different.

This is the dead person speaking on their own behalf. That is telling the truth, both positive and negative, about the dead person.

I thought this was more practical-- the positive parts do already tend to be taken care of by the crowd.

Lets hope they sue ansible first.

Yes, I thought of it immediately. I've even officiated a funeral and tried to do the best I could to really actually speak for the dead. It was an experience.

It's already a well known novel[1]. You will have copyright issues.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_for_the_Dead

I mean I think he knows it's a novel lol.... That's his point, that this is the same as in that novel.

> It's already a well known novel[1]. You will have copyright issues.

> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_for_the_Dead

I thought book titles are not subject to copyright?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.writersdigest.com/.amp/copy...

They can be trademarked, which is why you can't use "Harry Potter" without permission.

True, but trademarks need to be registered, and doing so costs money. (Though probably a negligible amount for a publisher, at least if they believe the work will bring in a lot of money.)

That’s a bit different from copyright which is automatic and free of charge.

But bringing up both things are good points either way.

Which makes me wonder, what happens if I were to write a book and two months later someone decides to rip off the title for their own book, and my publisher decides to trademark the title of my book? Would the trademark application be rejected because someone else used the same title in the intervening time? And if the trademark application was granted, would my publisher be able to demand that the other author/publisher stopped printing their book under the same title, or would they still be allowed to do so because their titling of the book preceded our trademark?

I don't think that's correct. A book series can be trademarked, I don't believe an individual book title can.

Orson Scott Card has no grounds to sue an actual Speaker for the Dead. No one will confuse the two.

Unless the coffin confessor decides to write a book.

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