Re: L.Rev (C) Release

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Bruce Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 26 Oct 1999, Andrew C. Greenberg <werdna[_at_]gate.net> wrote:
> >
> > Its fairly common. While I served as managing editor of a law review,
> > every author we published executed our form letter. Frankly, the issue
> > didn't come up -- the documents were usually sent back by return mail.
> > This is not to say that these points would not have been negotiable
> > under appropriate circumstances, but only to answer your question
> > whether such language was/is routinely executed.
>
> I find this a bit interesting, esp. compared to Mark Lemley's
> post that he never signs them (and as we all know, he does
> publish a bit). Of course, Mark has taught copyright, and
> (esp. from this forum) knows the subject well.
>
> I suspect that this is because the students getting published
> are so happy to get published that they will sign anything
> (and probably don't know any better), whereas others, such
> as profs may be expert in other areas, but rarely in such an
> esoteric subject as copyright (well, some think it such).

Well, the students are publishing to get on (or become editors of) the journal, so they have very little leverage. But, as I pointed out in the original post, this is an IP and entertainment law journal, so I would think that the people publishing in it would know what's what.

> But that brings me to the next question, which is why do
> the parties asking for these assignments think that the
> party signing has the right to give such rights away?
> Typically, the person who wrote the work is the one signing.
> While this may be effective for students, for most everyone
> else, there is arguably a work-for-hire situation involved.

Hey, I'm an adjunct. On the one hand, we don't count and, on the other, publication is not required for the job hence the WFH argument is even weaker than it usually is.

JK

John Kasdan
<kasdan[_at_]columbia.edu> Received on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 13:33:27 GMT