Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
I was referring to the moment of creation of the work here, not the point of expiration of copyright. As an author, I have the sole right to decide whether I will release my just-completed work or not. Once it is copywritten, it is implied that it will be "released" to the public at some point... I'll retain some rights for a time, then it is in the public's hands.
In terms of "orphan works," I'd consider that if has expired copyright, it should be available to the public for consumption, or at least available for public copies to be made.
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I agree completely with you here - I was just confused since I hear many times the mantra "as an author, publisher, studio... I have the right to do anything I want with my work" and that is used to justify for example refusal to do ebooks, using drm including rootkits - luckily not for ebooks so far, and so on.
Now I am mixed on the "right to refuse to release a book as an ebook" since I am not sure that ebooks are and should be treated differently than another format say like mmpb vs hc, and I have not heard of authors refusing to release their works only in hc, but it may also be argued that ebooks are essentially different - this is a debate we should have more btw - and of course I disagree completely with any form of drm that ensure vendor/system lock in.
As long as we agree that the once a book is released for sale to the public, the public has some rights and a stake in it, I think we can continue a useful argument about this or that...