Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria

[Thasaidon]

A question for you SleepyBob.

Should a publisher who has acquired the copyright to a book be able to prevent further publication of the book against the wishes of the author?

The publisher may do this to prevent competition with new books he is publishing.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Should a publisher who has acquired the copyright to a book be able to prevent further publication of the book against the wishes of the author?

This sounds like something that would happen with a textbook, and the publisher's in-house staff often -- I think ususally -- contribute more than do the title-page author(s).

It seems to me fairly unlikley that they would prevent continued publication of a profitable book that was totally, or almost totally, the creation of a single author. But I don't have a problem with an author having the freedom to sell all rights to a book to the publisher. If the author was legally forbidden to sell all rights to a publisher, this would reduce his or her income. While I am sensitive concerning freedom to read issues, I also consider interlibrary loan as a reasonable option for my reading an out of print book.

P.S. Does the Berne Convention say anything about this? I don't like international law violations.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Note that I am not against saving orphan works, or shortening copyrights, just that you have to be aware of unintended consequences.

It's a real shame that some of the software written in the 70's and 80's is basically destined for oblivion.

Agreed. You always have to be unintended consequences.


It occurs to me that it might be better if there were two sets of copyright rules. One for the original author and one for copyright acquired by publishers from an author.

My feeling is that publishers should forfeit their copyright if they fail to keep the publication in print or available as an ebook for five years (period negotiable).

The author should not lose copyright in this way but I think the copyright period should no more than 50 years from date of publication and probably less.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This sounds like something that would happen with a textbook, and the publisher's in-house staff often -- I think ususally -- contribute more than do the title-page author(s).

It seems to me fairly unlikley that they would prevent continued publication of a profitable book that was totally, or almost totally, the creation of a single author. But I don't have a problem with an author having the freedom to sell all rights to a book to the publisher. If the author was legally forbidden to sell all rights to a publisher, this would reduce his or her income. While I am sensitive concerning freedom to read issues, I also consider interlibrary loan as a reasonable option for my reading an out of print book.

P.S. Does the Berne Convention say anything about this? I don't like international law violations.

My understanding is that it happens fairly frequently and mostly with fiction.

A middling author has a reasonable backlist. The contract he signed with the publisher assigns copyright to the publisher. (Common practise I believe.) Some years later sales of the titles in the author's backlist are only making a small profit/breaking even.

The publisher has a "hot" new author who writes similar books, so the publisher decides not to reissue any more titles from the backlist of the old author because they may compete with the titles the "hot" new author. He hopes to make a lot more money from the "hot" new author's titles.

As he he holds the copyright he can prevent both the old author and a new publisher from publishing titles from the old author's backlist. And should a title on the old Author's backlist be picked up to make a film (movie for our US readers) he is in a position to make a lot of money.

Commercially it makes sense for the publisher but culturally it is not good. It is also not good for the old author whose visibility and income are affected or public who want to buy titles of the old author's backlist. (Agreed the number of such people may be relatively small.)

I have no knowledge of the Berne Convention.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

My understanding is that it happens fairly frequently and mostly with fiction. . . .

The publisher has a "hot" new author who writes similar books . . .

Similar novels? You mean that the publisher just has one murder mystery writer at a time? Or just one that has murder mysteries set in the UK? Sounds strange. So I'd like to see several examples.

As I wrote, I know it happens with textbooks, where there are frequent new editions created mostly by the publisher's in-house staff.

If they have a backlist biography of, oh, say, Anthony Eden, selling for years at a low price, and are pushing a new high price Eden biography, it concevably would make minor business sense to drop the older title. And I could understand it being eyebrow-raising if the old one was critical, and the new one is hagiographic. But fiction? This makes no sense to me, because publishers have multiple titles per genre.

Also, popular authors should have the freedom to sell rights outright. One of my nineteenth century favorites, Anthony Trollope did it a lot. By doing it, the publisher took all the risk, and Trollope took none. To me, outlawing such arrangements means a legal requirement that the author share the risk with the publisher. That would be, to me, a bad law.

[Thasaidon]

1. Steve if you wish examples do the research. Check the Mobilread forums and GIYF

2. You have brought up biographies, not me.

3. Yes Publishers often have multiple authors per genre but I did not say they were only not reissuing a single author's backlist. They may be doing the same to a number of authors in the genre.

4. I did not say authors should be not be able to sell rights outright. I said I think publishers should lose the copyright to a book if it is out of print and not available in any form for a fixed period (e.g. say 5 years). Not a particularly onerous restriction to keep something available with today's ebooks.

Please read my posts more carefully as I am getting tired of typing "I did not say that".

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

1. Steve if you wish examples do the research. Check the Mobilread forums and GIYF

Like this?

similar publisher drops backlist site:.mobileread.com

Nothing relevant comes up. And if it did, then we'd have to see how much evidence there is for what sounds to me an implausible claim. Is this coming from true industry insiders, or disgruntled authors? How would you measure the similarity of two books claimed to be such? I think that with fiction, absent plagarism, and absent strong evidence from industry insiders, you can't.

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

2. You have brought up biographies, not me.

I did, while saying I have no evidence it has actually happenned even in a realm where it is actually possible to measure whether two books are similar.

I think that the nefarious reason you give is why books go out of print is mistaken -- except with textbooks, where they obviously do quickly go out of print.

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

I did not say authors should be not be able to sell rights outright. I said I think publishers should lose the copyright to a book if it is out of print and not available in any form for a fixed period (e.g. say 5 years). Not a particularly onerous restriction to keep something available with today's ebooks.

Please read my posts more carefully as I am getting tired of typing "I did not say that".

OK. Your position then is that author's should be able to sell their rights outright with one exception that you don't find onerous but that you think is important to publishers. My postion is that the author should be able to sell all the rights.

We both agree that publishers make money by taking books off the market even though they are still profitable. I think they just do this with textbooks. You think they do this with novels (and maybe textbooks too -- I don't know.)

You proposal will significantly reduce the incomes of the authors listed on title pages of textbooks, because it destroys the model when there are frequent new editions. Knowing that the author will, in five years, undercut the publisher price, the textbook publishers may refuse to credit authors, significantly reducing their incomes. As for novelists, it won't make much difference to their average incomes one way or the other. Publishers will just keep novels in print longer that probably aren't earning out advances anyway.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Like this?

similar publisher drops backlist site:.mobileread.com

Nothing relevant comes up. And if it did, then we'd have to see how much evidence there is for what sounds to me an implausible claim. Is this coming from true industry insiders, or disgruntled authors? How would you measure the similarity of two books claimed to be such? I think that with fiction, absent plagarism, and absent strong evidence from industry insiders, you can't.

I did, while saying I have no evidence it has actually happenned even in a realm where it is actually possible to measure whether two books are similar.

I think that the nefarious reason you give is why books go out of print is mistaken -- except with textbooks, where they obviously do quickly go out of print.

OK. Your position then is that author's should be able to sell their rights outright with one exception that you don't find onerous but that you think is important to publishers. My postion is that the author should be able to sell all the rights.

We both agree that publishers make money by taking books off the market even though they are still profitable. I think they just do this with textbooks. You think they do this with novels (and maybe textbooks too -- I don't know.)

You proposal will significantly reduce the incomes of the authors listed on title pages of textbooks, because it destroys the model when there are frequent new editions. Knowing that the author will, in five years, undercut the publisher price, the textbook publishers may refuse to credit authors, significantly reducing their incomes. As for novelists, it won't make much difference to their average incomes one way or the other. Publishers will just keep novels in print longer that probably aren't earning out advances anyway.

1 You are entitled to your opinion regarding fiction but I have formed this opinion after reading articles by disgruntled authors and people who have worked in publishing over a number of years.

2. A few googles over a couple of hours hardly counts as research in my view.

3. As regards textbooks, I do not know if publishers do not reissue textbooks because they have a new textbook they want to push but would not be surprised if it happens.

4. How would my proposal reduce textbook author's income? If a publisher brings out a new edition of a textbook then the book is still in print, unless it contains no text from the original edition. If that is the case then it is a new and different book even if it has the same title. In any case details would have to be worked out. I have just thrown out out a bare bones idea of my thinking.

5. You seem to be taking this discussion a little personally. Have you written a textbook?

[pwalker8]

I think that you are confusing copyright law with the contracts being signed between the authors (copyright holders) and publishing companies. Reversion of rights is frequently a part of the contract.

I think that with regards to fiction, it's pretty rare for a publishing company to withhold a profitable book from the market. The more likely reason is simply that the publishing company decided that it just wasn't profitable to keep the book in print. This happens all the time.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think that you are confusing copyright law with the contracts being signed between the authors (copyright holders) and publishing companies. Reversion of rights is frequently a part of the contract.

I think that with regards to fiction, it's pretty rare for a publishing company to withhold a profitable book from the market. The more likely reason is simply that the publishing company decided that it just wasn't profitable to keep the book in print. This happens all the time.

Perhaps so, I may be wrong. I have however come across instances of Publishers holding the Publishing rights to certain titles and preventing the author and other publishers from republishing the titles.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Perhaps so, I may be wrong. I have however come across instances of Publishers holding the Publishing rights to certain titles and preventing the author and other publishers from republishing the titles.

That certainly happens, though it also happens that publishing companies will revert the rights when they have no plans for a book, even if they are not required to by the contract. It just depends on the whims of whoever is making the decision. That's why authors should have good literary agents. Some people have the attitude that I'm not going to give up anything unless you pay me. Heck, there are a lot of cases where the heirs of the author are the ones preventing publishers who want to publish a backlist book from publishing it. They want to hold out for a big payout. Another reason I don't like the current copyright system.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That certainly happens, though it also happens that publishing companies will revert the rights when they have no plans for a book, even if they are not required to by the contract. It just depends on the whims of whoever is making the decision. That's why authors should have good literary agents. Some people have the attitude that I'm not going to give up anything unless you pay me. Heck, there are a lot of cases where the heirs of the author are the ones preventing publishers who want to publish a backlist book from publishing it. They want to hold out for a big payout. Another reason I don't like the current copyright system.

Authors should not bargain on reversions in this brave new world unless they are prepared to pay for them. The Big Publishers are part of large corporate groups, and the balance sheet comes first. And the publishers rights in each book are assets on that balance sheet.

Literary agents are also on the way out. They were yet another snout at the trough in the traditional publishing system, with a high likelihood of a conflict of interest by the very nature of their profession. As Chris Rusch pointed out on a number of occasions on her blog, many of them engaged in legal and negotiating work for which they usually had no qualifications whatsoever, and in the case of the legal work may even have been breaking the law in many jurisdictions.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

Authors should not bargain on reversions in this brave new world unless they are prepared to pay for them. The Big Publishers are part of large corporate groups, and the balance sheet comes first. And the publishers rights in each book are assets on that balance sheet.

Literary agents are also on the way out. They were yet another snout at the trough in the traditional publishing system, with a high likelihood of a conflict of interest by the very nature of their profession. As Chris Rusch pointed out on a number of occasions on her blog, many of them engaged in legal and negotiating work for which they usually had no qualifications whatsoever, and in the case of the legal work may even have been breaking the law in many jurisdictions.

Well, the time to bargain is when they are talking contract, not after the fact. I agree that the large corporate publishing house where there is more control by the home office is a lot less likely to revert a book as a matter of courtesy.

I'm not so sure that literary agents are on the way out. It seems to me to be folly for most authors to negotiate their own contracts without someone who knows the business to warn them of the traps. Most of the authors that I read seem to go out of their way to praise their agents.

Certainly, if you have an agent who isn't qualified that's a major problem, but then again, that's the same for any legal work, or really any work in general. You also don't want a roofer, electrician or plumber who isn't qualified.

One of the more interesting things that I've noticed is that many successful authors seem to have quite a support network. I just finished Tamora Pierce's latest book and she thanks her support network at the end of the book. It's quite a list.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I'm not so sure that literary agents are on the way out. It seems to me to be folly for most authors to negotiate their own contracts without someone who knows the business to warn them of the traps. Most of the authors that I read seem to go out of their way to praise their agents.

Unfortunately there is a built-in potential conflict of interest, with a very high likelihood of it becoming an actual one. To have any chance of being published the industry forced authors to use agents. Agents dependant on the goodwill of their contacts at the various publishers. Personal friendships were not exactly uncommon. I'd say agents were what I would call a "captive" industry. As for praising agents? Perhaps Stockholm Syndrome. Or simple gratitude for being published at all under the prevailing conditions.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Certainly, if you have an agent who isn't qualified that's a major problem, but then again, that's the same for any legal work, or really any work in general. You also don't want a roofer, electrician or plumber who isn't qualified.

So what qualifications did/does one need to be a literary agent, other than ones connections? An MFA or a major in literature does not qualify one to negotiate or interpret contracts.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the more interesting things that I've noticed is that many successful authors seem to have quite a support network. I just finished Tamora Pierce's latest book and she thanks her support network at the end of the book. It's quite a list.

I'd say pretty well all. Including self-published authors. They can't afford too many supporters, particularly unqualified ones, if each of them wants 15% of their earnings.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

A middling author has a reasonable backlist. The contract he signed with the publisher assigns copyright to the publisher. (Common practise I believe.)

I’d just note that this is NOT common practice at all. Publishing contracts do not transfer copyright to the publisher. The only area of publishing in which it is common is academic journal publishing. I’ve never, ever, heard of it happening with book publication. Can you give an example?