Re: Anonymous poems

>>> laplante[_at_]warp6.cs.misu.nodak.edu 09/23/02 09:40AM >>>
My question for the list is: If a work is anonymous and hasn't been published, and a concerted effort has been made to determine ownership, how great a risk would it be to reprint it in a published book? <<<<<

If it hasn't been published, how the heck did the professor get hold of a copy without knowing who the author was?

Many countries other than the U.S. have a provision for getting a compulsory license where you have made a good faith effort to locate the copyright owner and have been unable to do so. You pay a royalty to a government fund that supports authors, and you get a statutory license that allows you to use the work. The U.S. does not have such a provision, but it is badly needed here.

Without knowing who the author is, it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess the risk. But as a practical matter, the author's assessment of the risk doesn't matter. If the publisher refuses to publish the poems, it doesn't matter what the actual risk may be. This is a severe chilling effect that can only be overcome by a statute such as the one described above.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Professor and Co-Director
Center for Intellectual Property Law
Whittier Law School
3333 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 444-4141, ext. 243
(714) 444-1854 (fax)
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu Received on Tue Sep 24 2002 - 17:22:55 GMT