Does anyone here have "The Richest Season" or "So Happy Together," McFadden, in Mobi?

[DNSB]

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.

[DuckieTigger]

I see what you mean - we talked about different contracts. I thought you meant the contract between publisher and seller. That contract cannot trump copyright. But you were talking about the contract(s) between author and publisher(s) - where the author signed over the rights to publish.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

If I recall correctly Walter Jon Williams used his pirated ebooks once he got the rights back to release his back list.

He gave me a copy of one of his print books in exchange for a ebook scan of one of his books for which he couldn't find any pirated copies.

[Hitch]

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.

I shall say only that the worldwide rights had, indeed, reverted. The publisher had moved to remove the book world-wide, but as is the case with bookstores everyplace, some are faster to comply than others (THANK GOD).

Hitch

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I shall say only that the worldwide rights had, indeed, reverted. The publisher had moved to remove the book world-wide, but as is the case with bookstores everyplace, some are faster to comply than others (THANK GOD).

Hitch

Don't most contracts have a time (or some other conditions) when the rights to a book reverts to the author of a work Hitch?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by crich70

Don't most contracts have a time (or some other conditions) when the rights to a book reverts to the author of a work Hitch?

Yes, and typically, that's 7 years. But like all things in law, there's always the whole "yabbut, how do we know that the publisher didn't renew during the option to renew period...blabbety-blab-blab-blab."

Lesson for you folks who iz writin' dem books: if you sign a publishing contract, make sure that the terms and timeframe for your rights of reversion are clearly spelt out, and that the DEFAULT is that it reverts to you.

HTH.
Hitch

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, and typically, that's 7 years. But like all things in law, there's always the whole "yabbut, how do we know that the publisher didn't renew during the option to renew period...blabbety-blab-blab-blab."

Lesson for you folks who iz writin' dem books: if you sign a publishing contract, make sure that the terms and timeframe for your rights of reversion are clearly spelt out, and that the DEFAULT is that it reverts to you.

HTH.
Hitch

Shouldn't they also ask for a courtesy ecopy to go with their courtesy pcopy?

[CRussel]

I always insisted on as-published, DRM-Free copies in all three formats -- mobi, ePub, and PDF. Along with my 10 physical copies. And wrote it into the contract. If you write it into the contract, it's viewed as a trivial thing and they give it to you. If you wait, some jerk somewhere in the bureaucracy will want to say no.

(of course, I also have my original marked-up copies in Word format, but they will inevitably have some differences with the as-published work.)

[DNSB]

Given that for quite a few older authors, ebooks were not something that was even considered when their contracts were signed, I can't blame them for not having 20-20 foresight -- 20-20 hindsight is so much easier.

[DiapDealer]

Wait 'til all these new authors who were raised on ebooks start getting burnt on the rights to the injectable, or cortical-implant versions of their works.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Shouldn't they also ask for a courtesy ecopy to go with their courtesy pcopy?

Indeed, nowadays, they absolutely should. The ePUB particularly; worst-comes-to-worst, you can make all the others from that with relative ease. Or someone can, if the author doesn't have the tech skills.

Originally Posted by CRussel

I always insisted on as-published, DRM-Free copies in all three formats -- mobi, ePub, and PDF. Along with my 10 physical copies. And wrote it into the contract. If you write it into the contract, it's viewed as a trivial thing and they give it to you. If you wait, some jerk somewhere in the bureaucracy will want to say no.

(of course, I also have my original marked-up copies in Word format, but they will inevitably have some differences with the as-published work.)

Ain't that the truth--the bureaucrat, that is. My author just went through that very thing. She DID have courtesy/author copies of her files, but a computer drive crash nuked them. Think that the DBag in charge of those files now, would give her a new set? Noooooooo.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Given that for quite a few older authors, ebooks were not something that was even considered when their contracts were signed, I can't blame them for not having 20-20 foresight -- 20-20 hindsight is so much easier.

Of course not, and that's not what I meant, I quite literally meant authors today signing with publishers.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Wait 'til all these new authors who were raised on ebooks start getting burnt on the rights to the injectable, or cortical-implant versions of their works.

Oh, it would be you who'd think of that! I'll pass on cortically-implanted books (or movies), thanks anyway. :-) With my luck, my movie or book would get stuck in a loop without a reboot button--or worse, with one! (Yup, pull on my ear, and you get blue screen in my eyes until my brain comes back online....)

Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Ain't that the truth--the bureaucrat, that is. My author just went through that very thing. She DID have courtesy/author copies of her files, but a computer drive crash nuked them. Think that the DBag in charge of those files now, would give her a new set? Noooooooo.
Hitch

In other words, your author values her/his work so little that s/he didn't even have a backup???!!!

Seriously? I have my book files backed up to a standalone disk, a local server, and have a third copy in the cloud. And the local server is separately backed up to the cloud AND a local backup disk. Are you kidding? This is my intellectual property, and there is NO F***ing way I'm not covering my posterior every which way but Sunday. I started writing books in 1990 or 1991, and I have every book file I've ever created. Now the fun part would be to come up with an application to READ those files these days. (First word processor was PCWrite, followed by Word Imperfect, and then when forced by circumstance and the publishers, Word.) The WP files could probably be read and mangled by Word, but recovery of the PCWrite files would be a good deal more annoying. The main files were ASCII text, but there were embedded control characters for some formatting features that would be a bit work to have to sort.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

In other words, your author values her/his work so little that s/he didn't even have a backup???!!!

Seriously? I have my book files backed up to a standalone disk, a local server, and have a third copy in the cloud. And the local server is separately backed up to the cloud AND a local backup disk. Are you kidding? This is my intellectual property, and there is NO F***ing way I'm not covering my posterior every which way but Sunday. I started writing books in 1990 or 1991, and I have every book file I've ever created. Now the fun part would be to come up with an application to READ those files these days. (First word processor was PCWrite, followed by Word Imperfect, and then when forced by circumstance and the publishers, Word.) The WP files could probably be read and mangled by Word, but recovery of the PCWrite files would be a good deal more annoying. The main files were ASCII text, but there were embedded control characters for some formatting features that would be a bit work to have to sort.

Now, now, Charlie...not everyone is tecchie. This is not a wildly tecchie client, and her copy was lost. You know it could happen to the best of us. And to be fair, they sent her those 10--yes, ten--years ago.

Hitch

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by CRussel

In other words, your author values her/his work so little that s/he didn't even have a backup???!!!

Most people don't obsess over backups. I know I don't.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Most people don't obsess over backups. I know I don't.

Important files should always be backed up, but it is easy to miss some I'm sure. I know I try to back up things (online in the cloud if nothing else) that I want to protect. An example is the Plot Embryo printable I mentioned in another thread. I saved it to One Drive among other places because you never know when your computer might scramble its hard drive. Also it cost me $20.00 to buy it (there was a sale) so I wanted to protect my investment. Once I bought a program that turned mp4 videos into the 3D (red and blue) versions. I didn't back it up right away and shortly thereafter my computer went down and I lost the only copy I had. Lesson learned.