Author owernship of copy

From: Spectrum Press <73774.2733[_at_]compuserve.com>
Date: 07 Mar 96 12:44:06 EST

If you see behind the title page: Copyright (c) 1996 [publisher], this does not necessarily mean the publisher "holds" the copyright. The usual procedure is for the publisher to register the copyright in the work as agent for the author. In such a case, the author's name is listed on the TX form and the publisher is merely a licensee. The Copyright Office knows absolutely nothing about the actual contract between author and publisher, details of the license, etc. (except, by implication, that some agreement exists). The copyright is "held" by the author and not by the publisher. The standard publishing contract assigns a license to the publisher, and does not involve a transfer of copyright. Indeed, it sometimes happens that the license is not exclusive, and so you may find the same copyrighted work published by several publishers.

Dan Agin

---

Spectrum Press Inc.
http://users.aol.com/specpress/index.html 71022.251[_at_]compuserve.com

> Authors don't always assign their copyrights to publishers. I pulled
> a few titles at random from my bookshelf to check copyright notices.
> The following examples represent about half of the titles I checked:
>
> o The copyright notice in "The Internet Guide
> for New Users," published by McGraw-Hill in
> 1994, identifies the author (Daniel P. Dern)
> as the copyright holder.
>
> o For "Simplicity & Complexity in Games of the
> Intellect," published by Harvard University
> Press, the copyright is held by the author,
> Lawrence B. Slobodkin.
>
> o Marina V.N. Whitman holds the renewal copyright
> in "The Computer and the Brain," written by her
> father, the late John von Neumann, and published
> by Yale University Press.
>
> o Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister hold the copyright
> for their book, "Peopleware: Productive Projects
> and Teams," published by Dorset House Publishing
> Company.
>
> o John A. Barry holds the copyright on "Technobabble,"
> published by The MIT Press.
>
> o Martin van Creveld holds the copyright in his book,
> "The Transformation of War," published by The Free
> Press, a division of MacMillan, Inc.
>
> The copyrights for the rest of the titles were held by the publishers.
>
>
> Chris Wren
> cgwren[_at_]wisconsinlaw.com
>
> ==================================================
>
>
> At 04:39 PM 3/4/96 -0800, Christine Sundt <csundt[_at_]oregon.uoregon.edu>
> wrote: >
> > One point of confusion? -- Isn't it the copyright owner (read
> > "publisher") who actually gets these rights? Once copyright is
> > assigned to the publisher, it appears to me that the author hasn't
> > much to hold onto, except the possibility that a new spark of
> > creativity will occur and lead to another work that can be passed
> > onto a publisher who then owns the rights... Is this the original
> > chicken and egg issue?
Received on Thu Mar 07 1996 - 17:46:07 GMT