Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
By far the biggest reason that nothing is being done with the many, many out-of-print but still-in-copright books is because the author's heirs aren't interested, or may be unaware of the books, or may not exist (i.e. the author doesn't have any heirs).
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Years ago, I was tracking down copyright on a couple of titles, for which, according to the book, copyright was held by the publisher.
The US publisher had gone under decades before I started my search.
The British publisher had gone into receivership, before being bought by another publisher.
The Canadian publisher was still limping along.
The Canadian publisher pointed to the new British company, as the copyright owner.
The British company pointed to the now defunct US company as the copyright owner.
I found a US publisher that had published some titles of the US publisher, after it (US publisher) had gone under. They had negotiated everything with the Canadian publisher.
Going around with them, they all concluded that somebody owned the copyright, but they had no idea who, and as such, none of them were willing to grant me permission to publish the book in the US. Not even an indemnify and hold harmless with the Canadian and New British publishers was acceptable.
None of the descendants of the author that I could contact, claimed ownership of the copyright to the works, with some going as far denying that their ancestor had even written the work in question.
Along similar lines, An acquaintance of mine was made literary executor of the estate, with copyright falling to her. None of the titles in her list were in print. She went to a local used book store. The owner looks at the titles, and the author's name, then recommends a different book store. She goes into that book store, gives the sales person the titles, and author, only to be told: "Madam, you don't want those books." My acquaintance insisted, and, with great reluctance, the book seller sold them to her.
Let's just say that the content wouldn't have passed the criteria that Hustler Magazine used, to determine whether or not something was obscene.
Needless to say, the literary estate executor promptly decided to pursue a fortune, by getting the material back into print.