[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

The idea that a publisher is obligated to release material in every medium listed in the contract, despite explicit language in the contract to the contrary, is patently absurd.

The idea that every movie script that gets sold must be made into a movie is equally absurd.

Hey, did I say they were obligated to actually produce and market the work in either case?

No, in fact I said:

Originally Posted by ATDrake

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.

If the company decides it's not worth it to them to make the e-book/film/3-D telepathic sens-o-rama/whatever, all very well and fine.

But if they happen not to, then after enough time, their "exclusive right to buy the rights" in that particular medium, as you phrased it, should lapse and the author should be able to take her creative work elsewhere to try again rather than the publisher being able to block its production, unless they renew "the exclusive right to buy the rights".

Perhaps the author might have to pay a certain standard fee if the publisher feels it needs some form of compensation for whatever it regards as its loss, but she should be able to expect to one day not too far off in the future receive the rights back to try and bring to market her unused creation, one way or another.

As DiapDealer pointed out with his example of Paul Kearney which I partially quote below, situations like that do no one any favours.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Bantam abruptly dropped the series after the second book of a planned four book series. They had no intentions of ever publishing any further installments in the series (in any format), but they still wouldn't relinquish (or sell) the publishing rights to the series. It was a very weird situation.

Nor do they make anyone any involved any profit or even revenue. Not the publisher, not the potential customer, and especially not the creator, who may have their entire livelihood tied up in a work which is not being sold, or even made available to be sold anywhere.

And as comics artist Colleen Doran points out, even Getting Paid Late for one's work (vs. Not Getting Paid At All) can really screw up an author/artist's life, even if turns out to be a minor matter for the publishers, which seem to held to a far more lax standard than the creator in many matters.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

But if it isn't in the contract, then the reversion of rights has no grounds whatsoever, nor should copyright laws interfere in legitimate contracts reached between consenting parties.

I would opine that not publishing a work in a medium contracting specifically for the rights to publish in said medium would constitute some form of grounds.

Note that I am not demanding that the work be actually published if the publisher does not wish to do so for whatever reason. I am only saying that if they do not intend to or are unable to publish, then the author ought to get a fair shot at taking her work elsewhere after a certain length of time and inactivity should the publisher not wish to negotiate again for more time.

Out of curiosity, how would the situation work out if a publisher bought the print rights to print an author's book, but then simply ended up not printing it for whatever reason?

Would the author not have cause to obtain the rights back, even if she had to return the advance and such?

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

It was much later in life that Shuster had health problems and was unable to work -- as in, over 30 years later. No one knew that Superman would become an iconic character -- and much of the reason for that status is due to work by NA/DC done long after Siegel and Shuster stopped working on the comic.

I was in fact speaking of that "30 Years Later*", when Shuster was quietly given make-work by DC editor Julius Schwartz, IIRC, so that he could scrape by.

And Siegel & Shuster did recognize that the Superman copyright had value, if only sentimental, and tried to legally re-establish their interest in it, and when they sued for it the first time, they had been pretty much primary-to-exclusive writer/artists for the comics (again IIRC, which I'm very fuzzy on since Golden Age comics are not my forte).

Now, maybe if they'd acquired them, they'd have taken Superman in a direction where it flopped (not that the 50s-70s pre-Denny O'Neil Superman comics were anything to write home about, mind you). But the core of the character was their creation and they had the right to try and get control of it back.

And thanks in part due to the Superman copyright fight, the comics industry now has more-or-less standard sorts of contracts which are more beneficial to the creators actually creating the marketed works.

And that's why we've entire lines of creator-owned comics such as at Image, and even the DC/Marvel/other corporate universe have minor creator-owned characters within them, if a writer/artist came up with an original contribution that was popular enough to be re-used.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

So yeah, not sure this qualifies as an example of the sheer horrors and injustices of work-for-hire.

Whatever you may think about it, the kerfuffle that was originally raised around it when the situation came to light in the public consciousness when the Superman films with Christopher Reeve were released has basically changed the way comics are created and the creators treated in the US mainstream comics industry.

Incidentally, the courts went and ruled that the original portion of the Superman story that S&S created somehow did not qualify as "works for hire" and so the families now share the copyright.

Warner apparently responded by suing the lawyer fighting on the families' side in the case, apparently alleging he had some sort of secret financial stake in the matter and therefore a conflict of interest.

This allegation, they based on documents stolen from his office.

Is it any wonder sometimes people are much more inclined to side with the creators when it comes to exercising control of copyrights than the corporations?

* I'd make a "One Year Later" joke, but maybe "Crisis of Infinite Copyrights" would have more name-brand recognition, since it's considerably more iconic than any of the DC mega-events it spawned.