Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
@pwalker8. I'm sorry to say so, but your posts display a fundamental misunderstanding of this area. For example:
Many of the surrounding sections in the Copyright Act in the US code make the situation very clear.
At least in the US as provided by the Constitution and discussed previously, Copyright is clearly not a legal construct between the owners and the government. So far as books are concerned, it is designed to promote the writing of more books by giving the author a statutory monopoly for a limited period. Any benefit to the author is incidental to this.
So far as contract law being mainly common law, this is simply not true. The basics of contract law derive from the Common law, but much of contract law is governed by legislation, particularly in the US which extensively codifies many of its laws. Even if you were correct, common law is not a free for all as you imply. Judges are bound by precedent which ensures some consistency, particularly given there is an appeals process, and few judges like to be overruled by a higher court.
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No I don't misunderstand. Once again, open the book cover and see who the copyright holder is. Most of the time it isn't the publisher but rather the author or a company that the author set up. It's certainly possible to sign over the copyright, but it's rarely done. Let's put it this way. Authors normally sign a contract with the publishing company which is very much like the publisher leasing the copyright from the author, i.e. like you leasing a car. Sometimes the lease is for a set period of time, sometimes it's for as long as certain criteria is met (such as selling a certain number of books a year or not being out of print for more than 5 years), sometimes it's open ended, but it's still a lease rather than an outright sell.