Re: copyright renewal

From: Kevin Dames <kmd32[_at_]law.georgetown.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 10:20:18 -0500

Mr. Haley:

I am a law librarian at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, and a subscriber to the cni-copyright listserv. I cannot give you advice on this matter because I am not licensed to practice law. I have read your father's book twice, however, and have enough familiarity with the book and federal copyright law so that I can at least generate some questions for you so that you may take them to an attorney, or at least have the answers for an attorney when he asks about these issues.

And make no mistake: you will need a qualified, experienced copyright attorney to resolve this, preferably one who has experience in handling copyright matters for estates.

1. When was the original copyright date on the autobiography and when did it lapse?

2. Was the executor of your father's estate supposed to handle your father's copyright issues or was that left to another party?

3. What are the terms and conditions for distribution of royalties to the heirs of Alex Haley's estate?

4. When was the last time the estate has had an accounting of the book's proceeds and royalty statements? What do those statements say?

Be sure to have your documents in order for review.

I will pass this on to a number of copyright attorneys I know here in the DC area. Good luck

K. M. Dames
Resident Librarian
 

Kinteh7@aol.com wrote:

I am the son of the late author Alex Haley who died in Feb 1992. His estate is still open after 10 years and we (his children) are struggling to not be taken advantage of by other parties with respect to some of the copyrights. I have two questions for you and would appreciate your opinions and suggestions.

1. The book The autobiography of Malcolm X copyright was renewed twice in 1993 according to the records at the Library of Congress, once in January 1993 by Betty Shabazz alone and then again in December of the same year in the Name of Betty Shabazz and My fathers spouse and Children. We were not notified by the literary agent until June 1994 that this action had been taken on our behalf and were not informed of the double filing. At anyrate the literary agent withheld payment of royalties from the children and spouse of Alex Haley pending the signing of a contract to renew publication rights in 1976. At that time we were paid the advance on the new contract and back payments for the funds held from June 1994 to the beginning of the contract period. I discovered two months ago that the Estate of Alex Haley had been paid the royalties for the book from the date of Betty Shabazz's renewal in 1993 to June 1994. The amount was (according to the literary agent) $460,000.00. Th! e ! estate did not distribute these monies to us. We believe that we are the proper recipients of this money and that the estate has to return these funds to us with interest.

2. Roots was copyright in 1976 by Alex Haley, however a condensed version of a portion of the work first appeared in Reader's Digest in 1974 copyright by Readers Digest Association, Inc. Since the readers digest copyright is due to expire can the family renew now? What rights do we have if we can renew?

I am asking you because I have asked the estate, the literary agent and Readers Digest. No one has responded and silence makes me uneasy about the situation. My sisters and I are poor, we cannot afford to pursue a legal battle on this, but that does not mean that we would not.

Happy Holidays to all of you

William A. Haley
Kinteh7@aol.com

Received on Fri Dec 28 2001 - 15:22:16 GMT