Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On 23 Oct 1998, Joseph P. Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, but except for copyright and the efforts of publishers,
> > it's likely that no one would have heard of Fitzgerald and
> > there would be no market to attract reprinters.
> >
> > Poor sales performance by the reprints may discourage
> > them from further public domain projects.
> >
> > I speak as a former reprint editor.
>
> You do not state it but I believe that you are speaking from the
> perspective of a big publisher. While your statements are undoubtedly
> correct, this is not the whole picture. There are individuals out there
> who spend their spare time copying the public domain materials for the
> future generations to enjoy. Some of them see the preservation of
> knowledge as one of the paramount duties. These individuals may share
> the copies with their friends and these friends may share copies with
> other friends and so on.
>
> We do not hear from them at all because they do not make any money and
> therefore, are of no interest to the big publishers. After all, the
> duty of big publishers is to make money for the shareholders, not to
> preserve the knowledge for the non-shareholders.
>
> Dover Publications may be an exception. Yesterday, I received several
> catalogs from them. In the catalog titled "Complete Catalog of Books
> in All Fields 1998", on every 10th page there appears a little box at
> the bottom right corner saying:
>
> DO YOU KNOW an out-of-print or hard-to-find book
> you would like to see as an inexpensive Dover reprint?
> Send your suggestions to Dover Publications, Inc., 31
> East 2nd Street, Mineola, NY 11501.
>
> I do not know much about Dover Publications but on the face value, it
> seems that it is a better publisher than many other big publishers.

Dover, founded by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche in 1941, has an exceptionally good record of success. I would not say they are "better." They put and kept many classic public domain titles in print, as did Penguin and others.

Obviously, such publishers rarely paid royalties to authors for public domain works. It seems to me a pity that the heirs of Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Melville, etc. and modern writers have been treated less respect than homesteaders whose property rights were were better protected even from earliest times.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLYr <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Mon Oct 26 1998 - 19:14:21 GMT