Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
I never said anything about public domain books.
I am talking about out of print books which are still copyrighted.
The way I interpreted a couple of posts was either keep your book available or give up your rights or pay to keep it out of print.
That to me says if your memoirs are not that important to you, give up your rights so some other person can make money off of your hard work.
So life + 70 makes sense.
As per your Shakespeare reference, someone cared about his work to keep it going.
As to Twain's heirs, they can still make money off his books if they want to.
Now to all of you that want to make sure no book is ever orphaned again: contact the copyright holder and get permission to store a copy of their book so exactly 70 years after they die, you can make their work available.
Find the flaw in that logic.
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There are a few flaws in that logic, the first being that I don't need the author's permission to store a book that is for sale right now.
Another flaw is that there are books out there right now that are orphaned, and nobody knows who has the rights. Because of the way that copyright is structured in the US, the copyright for some of these books won't be available until years after anyone who is interested in the books is dead.
Of course, there's also the issue that, unfortunately, a book written by any author alive right now will not go out of copyright until I am long dead, so I couldn't make it available when it's legal to do so anyway.
Shari