[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by barryem

Thanks for that link. I'll read it after I read through the forum today.

I earlier posted a link to a TED Talk by Nina Paley where she talks about that. Here's the link again in case you missed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc&t=626s

Fantastic. I haven't followed her work since I first found out about her in ~2008. I just watched that talk: It was enjoyable, and seemed like a good basic introduction to the ideas.

I'll have to give this entire thread a thorough read as well. I read the first few posts when the topic first started, and then I only hopped in recently to comment on the latest posts.

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Are you using 'hold' in a strange sense?

Copyrights registered to a publisher are rare.

Publisher contracts that had the author's copyright licensed for the full legal term are mostly fairly recent. Old style it was only while the book remained in print.

See any book on book publishing contracts pre-1995

I would be very interested in learning about the examples you speak of!

I just digitize the books, and I must admit, I am not the one on the side of the nitty gritty contract details. (And each book contract most likely has its own unique twists.)

Most of what I gather is just general articles I have read over the years. For example:

"A Publishing Contract Should Not Be Forever" on The Authors Guild website (emphasis mine):

Spoiler:

Diamonds may be forever, but book contracts should not be. There’s no good reason why a book should be held hostage by a publisher for the lifetime of the copyright, the life of the author plus seventy years—essentially forever. Yet that’s precisely what happens today. A publisher may go bankrupt or be bought by a conglomerate, the editors who championed the author may go on to other companies, the sales force may fail to establish the title in the marketplace and ignore it thereafter, but no matter how badly the publisher mishandles the book, the author’s agreement with the original publisher is likely to remain in effect for many decades.

That’s the way most book contracts have been drafted for more than a century, and publishers take it for granted; only a few brave souls have asked why or argued with it because that’s the way it has always been. In the ideal traditional publishing partnership—where the publisher nourished the author’s career; where the same editor worked closely with the author over decades, editing and reworking books and new book ideas; where the publisher actively marketed and promoted the author and gave the author a sufficient advance to live on between books—then it might have made sense for the publisher to own the rights for the entire copyright term. But that is the rare author-publisher relationship today.

[...]

or "What Not to Miss when Drafting & Negotiating Your Book Publishing Contract" (again, emphasis mine):

Spoiler:

Taking the boilerplate provisions for granted can also have serious consequences for authors.

[...]

The key to a good contract is clarity. Ambiguity and inconsistency are the two key ingredients in litigation soup. Formal agreements are essential. Under copyright law, without a written agreement signed by the author, the publisher does not control exclusive rights. If a dispute arises, a well-drafted contract will anticipate such a dispute and could save you thousands of dollars in legal fees later on. Keep in mind that you are negotiating a very long term relationship. If the book is successful, the publisher and author (or authors heirs) could be bound together for the life of the copyright. For works published after 1977, copyright lasts for life of the author plus another seventy years. (see my article on Copyright Termination).

A publisher must shore up any weaknesses in a publishing contract. For example, tighten up the contract to ensure it contemplates new technologies. Terms such as “book form” and “electronic rights” are vague terms and should be carefully defined. Just a few years ago, everyone understood what the word “publish” meant and could agree on what the term “book form” meant. Not so, today. (see my article on Electronic Rights).

As the Carnegie Mellon PDF I linked above also stated:

4) Problems if the copyright owner responds – Even if the copyright holder is located and responds, potential users can still encounter problems. In our experience, some publishers have no record of having published older works. We have had to photocopy and send them the title page. Nevertheless, when they have no records, the search for copyright permission dead ends. Furthermore, publishers are not always certain what rights they have. Some appear to operate under the assumption that if a right is not explicitly granted to them in their contract with the author(s), then they do not have that right, for example, the right to make a digital version of the work. Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right.

And then the experiences I hear about through the grapevine, of trying to digitize+republish a lot of these works.

So even if you were successful in hunting down the original publisher + contract + rightsholder, they may just assume: "Nope, no digital rights." Or again, add in all these extra stipulations (PDF ebook only + disable printing/copying/pasting, no EPUB/MOBI, etc. etc.).