Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

On 11 Aug 1998, Robert 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.

I confess my typo. I meant Howard estate, not Hubbard. Insofar as being in print in the U.S. Sorry.

I recall clearly that L. Sprague DeCamp representing the interest of the estate in the 1970s objecting to imports by booksellers. So the copies you saw may have been the British edition.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com Received on Thu Aug 13 1998 - 19:18:01 GMT