Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
No, once copyright is reverted, it means that nobody can distribute (free of charge or for money) the work without infringing copyright. The copyright holder has to give permission. The seller may argue that the publisher did not notify them about losing the right to publish.
What other shenanigans went on is still a little bit grey (I don't want to know about them, and some might still be illegal). We won't know the exact circumstances (Hitch would be smart to not elaborate beyond what she already said) - it was my assumption that the reverting of rights included world wide publishing rights.
|
That all depends on the contracts with the various publishers. The expiry dates are not necessarily the same for every contract. And note this has nothing to do with the copyright but rather it is in the area of distribution rights. Joe Podunk may hold the copyright on his book unless a contract specifically assigned his rights to a publisher but the contracts with various publishers will determine who gets to publish the books/ebooks, how long the contract runs for and what, if any, rights will revert to the author after the contract expires. For older contracts where ebooks were not part of the original contract, this can get very nasty since publishers can and have claimed ebook rights are not covered under the original contract.