The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America seems to have overstepped its bounds. Earlier this month, it sent a notice of violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Scribd, a text file sharing site. The noticed intended to name pirated works by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, but included several non-pirated works including Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.” Doctorow explains the mess they made.

More importantly, many of the works that were listed in the takedown were written by the people who’d posted them to Scribd — these people have been maligned and harmed by SFWA, who have accused them of being copyright violators and have caused their material to be taken offline. These people made the mistake of talking about and promoting science fiction — by compiling a bibliography of good works to turn kids onto science fiction, by writing critical or personal essays that quoted science fiction novels, or by discussing science fiction. SFWA — whose business is to promote science fiction reading — has turned readers into collateral damage in a campaign to make Scribd change its upload procedures.

The SFWA President has apologized. “Unfortunately, this list was flawed,” he said, “and the results were not checked.” I can understand making a mistake, but not checked a complaint like this seems irresponsible very much like forwarding urban legends to all your friends. [via Paul Jessup]