Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

From: James Rogers <jetan[_at_]ionet.net>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 01:00:51 -0500 (CDT)

On 8/11/98, Bob Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 04 Aug 1998, Karsten M. Self <kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > While I'd argue for a significant time period before permanent lapse
> > > of copyright to an author, preferably several years, my general
> > > feeling is that if the author cannot find a publisher willing to
> > > publish a work, then there probably is little or no commercial
> > > interest in it.
> >
> > The Hubbard estate waited for years to negotiate a satisfactory
> > deal for the Conan series in the U.S. It was in paperback in
> > Britain. The Hubbard estate opposed specilized sci-fi book dealers'
> > unauthorized importing. Conan ended up not only in print but in the
> > movies.
> >
> > With an authorized investor, the series enjoyed far more marketing
> > and distribution than it had with bootleggers and pirates.
>
> This doesn't sound right to me. The Conan stories and books were
> created by Robert E. Howard, who lived and died in Texas, and to the
> best of my knowledge were ALWAYS in print in the US. I remember seeing
> them on the stands in paperback when I was a kid---and believe me that
> is a long time ago.

     He is half right (the half not attributing the stuff to our friend Hubbard, who has himself generated so much copyright law). The publisher who was putting the Conan books out when I was a kid (Lancer) went bankrupt and the rights to Howard's Conan stuff was tied up for a period in the mid to late 1970s, with only British editions available. Don't know the gory details of how the Lancer problems brought this about.

                             James

James Michael Rogers
jetan[_at_]ionet.net Received on Thu Aug 13 1998 - 05:59:22 GMT