FSM Online (and the immortal comma)

I returned to film music Internet consciousness in late 2005 only to discover that Film Score Monthly had just died. This was sad news, even though I never had been a subscriber to the “new” FSM - the well-produced one with the color covers. Call me old school, but I just missed the fannishness and exuberance of the old FSM too much. But when I heard it was going to an online version, I figured what the hey, I can pony up $4.95 a month again. We’ll see.

I was surprised and momentarily miffed, though, to see in one of their online articles something that I thought didn’t happen any more — barely disguised quoting from online resources. Namely, mine. Here I had just paid $4.95 to see my own crappy writing staring back at me. However, the author was very apologetic and gentlemanly, as film score folks usually are (which is why I keep coming back again and again), and it was really no big deal.

But I had to laugh again just the other day when I went over to the very snazzy official Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire website and they had stolen from my Patrick Doyle bio too. That definitely tops Carnegie Hall stealing from it! And the many others who have. It has been hilarious to see this humble little bio capsule making its way across the Internet since 1995 when I first put that site up; everyone faithfully reproducing the immortal comma (”Patrick Doyle is best known, as a film composer,”) and — even more glaringly — citing The Butterfly’s Hoof. Somehow, I doubt these folks are copying that from the liner notes to the Queen Mother concert — which is where I stole it from.