Random House being sued for not paying royalties

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

According to the BBC and PBS (but not the longer newspaper reports), Random House first said they would pay the estate, but changed their mind. People can change their mind. Corporations can also reverse decisions. Googling, I can't find a claim that Random House entered into a contract with the Goebbels family anywhere, except in this thread.

If Random House Germany did reverse a bad decision, the likely impetus was author Phillip Longerich. Here's how he sees it:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...s-in-biography



As to whether it is about fair use, well, literally, I'm not sure, since fair use is an American legal phrase. But it is about that concept. If the subjects of biographies, or their heirs, get to shake down publishers (or, if self-published, authors) for cash, or force them to cut out quotations, that is a big freedom to read issue for readers of biographies.

I'll quote from the BBC article:

A representative for Random House had initially agreed to pay 1% of the net retail price to Goebbels' estate.
However, the publisher has since declared the agreement void, saying it has moral objections to paying a war criminal's estate.

I would consider that pretty clear. People can change their mind, that's why prostitutes insist on the money up front [or so I'm told]. There's something about reaching into a wallet that brings out sudden moral shifts.

[Phogg]

Future research will be so much easier if really disgusting behavior by researchers today causes researchers in the future to have to pay in advance for access to information before they even know if they will use it.

Myopic behavior defended by equally myopic pundits.

[bgalbrecht]

Maybe it's "morally wrong", but it seems to me that it's legally right for them to pay for extensive use of copyrighted material.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Maybe it's "morally wrong", but it seems to me that it's legally right for them to pay for extensive use of copyrighted material.

We'll see what the German court says about legal rights. I venture no prediction.

I just quoted your post, in full. 100 percent. That's beyond fair use. If you are an American, the post I just reproduced is copyrighted material, as, since 1989, we do not require copyright registration.

How much should I pay you?

Or should Mobileread have to pay -- or close?

The Goebbels heirs are unusual in seeking royalties from a non-fiction author. The heirs of Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, for whatever reasons (I would suggest -- common decency), don't do it. Living leaders who also are authors, including Angela Merkel, GW Bush, and Barack Obama, don't do it. Should publishers, and self-published authors, who quote from their writings have to pay them off as well?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The Goebbels heirs are unusual in seeking royalties from a non-fiction author. The heirs of Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, for whatever reasons (I would suggest -- common decency), don't do it. Living leaders who also are authors, including Angela Merkel, GW Bush, and Barack Obama, don't do it. Should publishers, and self-published authors, who quote from their writings have to pay them off as well?

If insert any person or legal entity here agrees to insert any contract stipulation here should they comply with said agreement?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I just quoted your post, in full. 100 percent. That's beyond fair use. If you are an American, the post I just reproduced is copyrighted material, as, since 1989, we do not require copyright registration.

How much should I pay you?

Or should Mobileread have to pay -- or close?

Stop being ludicrous, you aren't helping your position.

Public posting to forums implicitly gives authorizes people to quote you completely, and let us not forget that the Reply feature encourages people to fully quote you.

Let us go one step further and say mailing lists (notorious for highly extraneous multiply-nested responses by careless users) are guilty of the same copyright violations.
What about archive.org, which copies websites verbatim? Googlecache? And many others?

Compared to material that is not submitted publicly online, which is protected against duplication and mirroring and archiving.

The Goebbels heirs are unusual in seeking royalties from a non-fiction author. The heirs of Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, for whatever reasons (I would suggest -- common decency), don't do it. Living leaders who also are authors, including Angela Merkel, GW Bush, and Barack Obama, don't do it. Should publishers, and self-published authors, who quote from their writings have to pay them off as well?

If the copyright holder desires thusly, why on earth not?

The existence of kind souls who relinquish their rights, does not speak to the non-existence of such rights.

Common decency is a pretty arbitrary term to go throwing around. Especially when you are replying to someone who merely claimed that as a purely legal concept, the rights-holders of copyrighted material can demand recompense for its use.

I am 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9% sure that bgalbrecht would agree a rights-holder can waive their claim if they so desire.

Maybe this is a very unusual situation. Maybe the rights-holders here are horrible people. Maybe they are ohmygosh a bunch of Nazis for not having the "common" decency to let people use their intellectual property free of charge in the noble cause of... something or other.

[murg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I am 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9% sure that bgalbrecht would agree a rights-holder can waive their claim if they so desire.

So what you are saying is that there is some doubt in your mind about this.

[eschwartz]

To quote another great sage of a recent thread:

Originally Posted by Notjohn

That's scary!

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Go ahead and bet your life on it then.

I only mean that if I DID bet my life on it, someone would be motivated to ferret out some weird, crazy loophole-of-an epub that wouldn't open after it was saved/closed. And there I'd be ... with no life left.

Correct. I try to avoid absolutes that aren't under my control. With that in mind, I just hope I was able to convey the message that I am pretty darned sure.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If the copyright holder desires thusly, why on earth not?

It gets to the fundamental value of a free press in providing a check on political leaders. And Random House is one of said free presses.

Given the decline of newspapers, book-length journalism is more important than ever, and shouldn't be subject to making payments to the public figures under examination.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Public posting to forums implicitly gives authorizes people to quote you completely, and let us not forget that the Reply feature encourages people to fully quote you.

I'd then say that when a public figure like Joseph Goebbels, or unlike him, keeps unpublished (in his lifetime) diaries, the public figure reasonably expects future historians to quote from them without his heirs getting a pay off.

Now, if the quotes were from books prepared for commercial publication, I'd still be against Random House paying off politicians, democratic or otherwise, or their heirs, for the quotes in critical biographies. But in terms of there being no expectation of the writing ever getting financial compensation, posts here do have a family resemblance to diary entries.

[mrscoach]

I'm not getting into the right or wrong of paying for the use of the material, but if Random House originally agreed to pay then they should pay. If they had such moral objections in the first place they shouldn't have offered 1% for the use. Where were their morals when the offer was thought up?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

It gets to the fundamental value of a free press in providing a check on political leaders. And Random House is one of said free presses.

Given the decline of newspapers, book-length journalism is more important than ever, and shouldn't be subject to making payments to the public figures under examination.


I'd then say that when a public figure like Joseph Goebbels, or unlike him, keeps unpublished (in his lifetime) diaries, the public figure reasonably expects future historians to quote from them without his heirs getting a pay off.

Now, if the quotes were from books prepared for commercial publication, I'd still be against Random House paying off politicians, democratic or otherwise, or their heirs, for the quotes in critical biographies. But in terms of there being no expectation of the writing ever getting financial compensation, posts here do have a family resemblance to diary entries.

Goebbels wasn't a politician, Goebbels was a bureaucrat.

Diaries are by nature private.

I personally have freedom of the press. I may print up political polemics and distribute them. That is what the phrase means - not some self defining little group. Random House is no more exempt from honoring it's contracts than you or I.

[SteveEisenberg]

Here is the update, from German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, after yesterday's hearing:

http://www.dw.de/legal-battles-over-...ies/a-18403830

Now the court needs to determine whether the words of one of the most important war criminals in history can be commercialized or not. A verdict is expected on July 9.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

It gets to the fundamental value of a free press in providing a check on political leaders. And Random House is one of said free presses.

Given the decline of newspapers, book-length journalism is more important than ever, and shouldn't be subject to making payments to the public figures under examination.

I was unaware that "freedom of the press" really meant "I can make money off of other peoples' work, since I claim to work in the public interest".
I thought freedom of the press gave people the right to speak up in public without being censored or persecuted by the government. You are still obligated to follow the basic rules of civilization.

Please, explain to me how Random House refusing to pay money under contract has anything to do with government censoring of the press.

I'd then say that when a public figure like Joseph Goebbels, or unlike him, keeps unpublished (in his lifetime) diaries, the public figure reasonably expects future historians to quote from them without his heirs getting a pay off.

I expect such people have a certain, I won't call it expectation, but perhaps a hope, that it would be destroyed after their death without being read. Peoples' private thoughts are often something they don't want broadcast to the world.
I highly doubt the question of whether their heirs would be paid for it ever crosses their mind.

Now, if the quotes were from books prepared for commercial publication, I'd still be against Random House paying off politicians, democratic or otherwise, or their heirs, for the quotes in critical biographies. But in terms of there being no expectation of the writing ever getting financial compensation, posts here do have a family resemblance to diary entries.

And your comparison between diaries and forum posts is ridiculous.

Forum posts are inherently given over to the public view -- that is kind of the point of them, a forum post that you hide in a drawer and never upload has failed its purpose for existing. And the forum design is inherently one where you quote others' posts. It would require one to be actually cognitively-challenged to not catch on after seeing and participating in such activities.
Private diaries are none of these things.


"Given over to the public view" is a concept that relates directly to the issue of "does one have an expectation of retaining one's rights to spoken/written content" -- a test which diaries pass and forum posts fail.

"Expectation of financial compensation" has nothing to do with the issue of "does one have an expectation of retaining one's rights to spoken/written content".
One example:
if I write a diary and release it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license, I am going to highly-noticeable lengths to control my rights to my work, but absolutely do not expect to get paid for it. According to you, anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want (and Random House can write and sell a biography based on it) because "you don't expect to get paid, so why not?"

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I thought freedom of the press gave people the right to speak up in public without being censored or persecuted by the government.

That sounds like freedom of speech.

Good press stories tend to have lots of quotes. If publishers and authors have to pay almost everyone they quote (copyright covers not just writings, but also most speeches), or retreat to paraphrase, this would greatly diminish the value to me of their reduced news coverage.

Please, explain to me how Random House refusing to pay money under contract has anything to do with government censoring of the press.

You mean that I should speculate what my views would be if a valid legal contract, that, AFAIK, only exists in the imagination of posters on this thread, did exist? My view would be that Bertelsmann should stop signing such contracts.

Peoples' private thoughts are often something they don't want broadcast to the world.

Often yes, but often no. Here's something on the convoluted history of these diaries:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/hi...s-1530789.html

As for less notorious, but equally prominent, people, as they get on in years, they often arrange for their diaries to go to a university archive. On the other hand, there have been cases where prominent people burned their diaries. I'm posting about cases where they weren't burned.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I highly doubt the question of whether their heirs would be paid for it ever crosses their mind.

In this instance, I agree, since the gentleman in question ordered his direct heirs to be killed.

[darryl]

@Steve. So there was an "agreement", verbal, written or both, for RH to pay Royalties. However, you say that agreement was not legally binding. The Book was published including the material for which royalties were being paid, and remains on sale. But RH now refuses to pay Royalties? On moral grounds! Really!

I wonder if Long John Silver, apprehended and prosecuted for pirating the ebook, would not be of the view that it would have been morally wrong for him to pay for the book? Makes about as much sense as RH's ridiculous position.

By the way, would I be correct in assuming that your position is that RH could have simply published the diaries verbatim without commentary and without any obligation to pay royalties?