Re: Re: Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book"

In-Reply-To: <list-1653473[_at_]cni.org>
"Robert F. Bodi" <lawlists[_at_]bodi.com> wrote:

> From: "Dodi Schultz" <SCHULTZ[_at_]compuserve.com>
> To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property"
> <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 11:15 AM
> Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book"
>
>
> > Keith Tabor asks about contracts vis-à-vis *Tasini*.
>
> > Keith, Tasini had to do with periodicals, not books. In trade books,
> > authors retain the copyright. (There are exceptions, which have been
> > exceptions from the get-go, mainly technological series.) Take a look
> > at
> > the books in the stores.
>
> "Retain" copyright is not enough. The retaining must be exlusive. The
> question is whether the authors have also granted the publishers some
> copyrights in the works. Both parties can own copyrights in the same
> work,
> which likely would allow the publisher to permit Amazon to do what it
> did.
> One must look to the contract/license for its terms.

But I thought the statement from the Authors' Guild was that they'd checked a significant sample of contracts and they licensed no such right.

This may be important, because publishers have an interest in shifting perception of "industry" custom and practice and thus (in the UK at least) influencing the interpretation or interpolation of lacunae in contracts. And as I see it, that was what _Tasini_ was about: a publisher trying to extend an implied term into contracts that were silent on the question of online publishing of the works.

And I don't think it helps to wrap up assignment and licensing of copyright as "ownership". Young musicians who (it has been alleged) assign their souls at the crossroads suffer from precisely this confusion.

Any of you who see authors and publishers as the same "pro-copyright" lobby, notice that we're at the sharp end of conflict with publishers...

Mike Received on Thu Nov 13 2003 - 02:00:07 GMT