Re: Abandoning property (Was: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress)

On 09 Nov 1998 Tyler Ochoa, <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> On 11/05/98, Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Should a published but out-of-print work be considered "abandoned"
> > > after x years and become public-domain?
> >
> > Certainly not. Copyright is the intellectual property right of the
> > author. The decision about a reprint is typically taken by the
> > publisher who has different interests. (Please also don't forget
> > that publication is no prerequisite for copyright protection.) If
> > the publisher refuses a reprint, why should the author's copyright
> > protection be put into question?
>
> In practice, the author usually (but not always) is required to assign
> his or her copyright to the publisher, so the person making the decision
> IS the same. In other cases, the author can protect himself or herself
> by providing that if the work is out of print for X number of years, the
> rights revert to the author.
>
> I agree that we a strict abandonment-after-X-years might be problematic,
> because people might start making decisions based on the assumption that
> if we all decline to buy it now, it may go out of print sooner, and then
> I can copy it for free. In addition, it does seem unfair to punish the
> author simply because he or she can't find a publisher willing to take
> the risk. But I would favor the proposal in cases where the publisher
> also owns the copyright. And in the future, when self-publication in
> digital form is likely to eventually become the norm, it might make a
> lot of sense.

My sense is that copyright of an o/p work should revert to the author at the author's request or demand, as the result of nonperformance on the part of the publisher. As a reprint editor, my experience has been that publishers are relatively easy to find and are trained to deal with negotiating reprint rights. Authors and their estates are less easy to locate and they must often be educated before they can begin to negotiate. Potential reprinters have been known to give up the quest when the resources consumed may exceed the potential for income.

Most publishers share subsidiary rights income with authors. You should consider most publishers of o/p works as the authors' agents, particularly for non-blockbuster materials where ten-percenters are rare and the authors may not be in Who's Who.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Wed Nov 11 1998 - 13:58:36 GMT