Re: Defunct publisher had grabbed copyright

In discussion of the case of the publisher's contrary-to-contract registration of copyright on a book in its own name rather than the author's, Richard Wiggins asks:

>> Did the author's original book contract have any provision for rights
>> reverting to the author if the book was out of print for a certain
>> number of years? If so, even if the publisher reneged on the plan
>> to register the work in the author's name, the author would get the
>> rights back anyhow.
>>
>> Are such clauses standard or at least common in book contracts today?

Book contracts normally do NOT provide for automatic reversion of rights.

Rather, the usual provision is that IF the work goes out of print (something that publishers have, in my experience, occasionally been unwilling to admit), the author must make a formal demand for a return to press. If the publisher fails to either reprint the work or reply to the author within X months, then any rights previously granted by the author will terminate.

Termination is presumably automatic at that point, but another publisher considering the work for reprint or revision will generally want to see a letter formally reverting rights to the author, so authors routinely request such a letter rather than depend on that automatic provision. The request is usually fullfilled, although it may take still more months.

But we're talking, here, about contract terms and specific rights granted to the publisher thereby. According to Ms. Busby, the contract terms were standard (requiring copyright registration, by the publisher, in the author's name). Reversion of the granted-by-contract rights won't affect the problem of erroneous registration at the Copyright Office; the rights granted per contract never included copyright.

P.S.: It strikes me that the mis-registration may have been dumb rather than malicious. The publisher may have been one whose contracts varied for some reason, some (perhaps in the case of compilations or works for hire) specifying copyright in the publisher's name rather than the author's; it's possible that the error was that of a low-level staffer assigned to handle the routine filing.

--DS Received on Tue May 30 2006 - 19:30:01 GMT