The erroneous publisher copyright registration

First, I realized after I wrote the post that the rights to the book are granted in the contract and the fact that the copyright was retained and erroneously registered in the name of the publisher doesn't affect that.

The agreement does not actually have a bankruptcy-rights return to author clause (which is unenforceable) which concerns me since the Trustee cited a specific paragraph for it that doesn't exist. But enough about that...

The issues here comes down to a) fixing the incorrect registration (which, as far as I can tell, can be done with a CA form altho the copyright office will show both registrations) and b) convincing the Trustee that the book which didn't sell well and that was 15 years ago isn't much of an asset and he should let the rights go back to the author. I'm going to see how one does that. It's not a claim in bankruptcy because there's no debt owed.

The contract does not have a rights reversion clause, a bankruptcy rights reversion clause, or an OP clause which means that unless the Trustee is willing to disaffirm the agreement, author's stuck until and unless the rights are either sold to another company.

I agree, Dodi, that the registration was dumb not malicious. The standard contract gives copyright to the publisher and I suspect my author's contract which was red lined to keep copyright with him was unusual. The folks who register the rights for the publisher probably didn't notice it. But then there's this phantom paragraph the Trustee thinks is in there. Hmmm.

Carol

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Carol A. Busby
Attorney at Law
141 W. 39th Avenue
Eugene, OR  97405
541-484-6860; fax: 541-338-7155
carol[_at_]drogon.com