[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by ApK

I disagree, and I think this kind of idea is why so many people think they are justified in breaking the law.

I was talking in direct relationship about the publisher who was sitting on the e-book rights and denying the author, who should control the copyright, the ability to assign the e-book rights for her creation wherever she pleased, as the original publisher had not been issuing an e-book but is now trying to block and reverse the release of it through the author's company of choice.

Quoted for context, the immediately preceding paragraph to the quoted statement you commented upon:

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Feh. If HC had the rights, they sat on them for a good long time without ever releasing an e-book. And the author herself granted e-book rights specifically to the Open Road people.

Originally Posted by ApK

Holding copyright means you have the right never to distribute your work if you see fit. Copyright is about control, which is as it should be.

Certainly, and I think that in cases where the rights are not explicitly bargained for in a publishing medium which actually exists, then it should not be assumed that there's implied consent for them included in the pre-existing contract, and the publisher should have to renegotiate for the new media rights again with the creator, and if they can't come to an agreement, then the new media rights should be assigned to creator.

And if the publisher does in fact bargain for the new media rights but fails to release in them, then the new media rights should revert to the author within a specified limited length of time, so that the author is not denied income from the sale of her copyrighted creation.

The author can sit upon and not-release her work for as long as she pleases, but publisher should certainly not be able to do so, at least not without paying significant compensation for it and with the author's explicitly granted consent, which they would have to keep "renting".

And if they don't keep renting and/or the author says "no way" to the amount they're offering, then she gets the new media publication rights back within a few years, regardless and pick whoever she wants to take them to next (or just lovingly file them away in the china cabinet, never to be seen again until 50+ years after her death).

Like having options on movie rights for books, which have to be renewed periodically. You can keep them unused if you can't get funding/whatever for production, but you have to keep paying the author for the exclusivity and the lock-out from anyone else making The Film Of The Book.

Originally Posted by ApK

(It also should be that that control expires in a reasonable amount of time and the work then goes to the public domain for the betterment of society. So I'm all in favor of reforming copyright length, but I'm against weakening copyright protections.

I'm in favour of not necessarily weakening copyright protections, but altering who can exercise them in favour of the actual creators of the works, rather than the corporate entities who may be exploiting them (cf. work for hire situations like the comic book industry has/had which kept one of the creators who originally invented Superman in borderline poverty doing odd jobs the editors tried to throw his way, while DC Comics/Warner was making huge profits on the Superman franchise and films and licensed tie-in merchandise).

<-- We have no Superman smiley. But he would be kind of hard to represent without the costume, as the spitcurl is kind of not-really-definitively-identifying.