EU Piracy Report

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

I am not too sure on that specific publication, but that is the case in most books (at least in the pre-self-publication boom). The authors DO NOT hold the copyrights, but the publishers do.

{. . . }

Are you using 'hold' in a strange sense?

Copyrights registered to a publisher are rare.

Publisher contracts that had the author's copyright licensed for the full legal term are mostly fairly recent. Old style it was only while the book remained in print.

See any book on book publishing contracts pre-1995

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Are you using 'hold' in a strange sense?

Copyrights registered to a publisher are rare.

Publisher contracts that had the author's copyright licensed for the full legal term are mostly fairly recent. Old style it was only while the book remained in print.

See any book on book publishing contracts pre-1995

Little Egret,
Reiman publications stated if you submitted a story, they held the copyright and could use it in any of their books or magazines. The owner has since sold out to Readers Digest.
Taste of Home and Country Woman are their big two magazines.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by barryem

Thanks for that link. I'll read it after I read through the forum today.

I earlier posted a link to a TED Talk by Nina Paley where she talks about that. Here's the link again in case you missed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc&t=626s

Fantastic. I haven't followed her work since I first found out about her in ~2008. I just watched that talk: It was enjoyable, and seemed like a good basic introduction to the ideas.

I'll have to give this entire thread a thorough read as well. I read the first few posts when the topic first started, and then I only hopped in recently to comment on the latest posts.

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Are you using 'hold' in a strange sense?

Copyrights registered to a publisher are rare.

Publisher contracts that had the author's copyright licensed for the full legal term are mostly fairly recent. Old style it was only while the book remained in print.

See any book on book publishing contracts pre-1995

I would be very interested in learning about the examples you speak of!

I just digitize the books, and I must admit, I am not the one on the side of the nitty gritty contract details. (And each book contract most likely has its own unique twists.)

Most of what I gather is just general articles I have read over the years. For example:

"A Publishing Contract Should Not Be Forever" on The Authors Guild website (emphasis mine):

Spoiler:

Diamonds may be forever, but book contracts should not be. There’s no good reason why a book should be held hostage by a publisher for the lifetime of the copyright, the life of the author plus seventy years—essentially forever. Yet that’s precisely what happens today. A publisher may go bankrupt or be bought by a conglomerate, the editors who championed the author may go on to other companies, the sales force may fail to establish the title in the marketplace and ignore it thereafter, but no matter how badly the publisher mishandles the book, the author’s agreement with the original publisher is likely to remain in effect for many decades.

That’s the way most book contracts have been drafted for more than a century, and publishers take it for granted; only a few brave souls have asked why or argued with it because that’s the way it has always been. In the ideal traditional publishing partnership—where the publisher nourished the author’s career; where the same editor worked closely with the author over decades, editing and reworking books and new book ideas; where the publisher actively marketed and promoted the author and gave the author a sufficient advance to live on between books—then it might have made sense for the publisher to own the rights for the entire copyright term. But that is the rare author-publisher relationship today.

[...]

or "What Not to Miss when Drafting & Negotiating Your Book Publishing Contract" (again, emphasis mine):

Spoiler:

Taking the boilerplate provisions for granted can also have serious consequences for authors.

[...]

The key to a good contract is clarity. Ambiguity and inconsistency are the two key ingredients in litigation soup. Formal agreements are essential. Under copyright law, without a written agreement signed by the author, the publisher does not control exclusive rights. If a dispute arises, a well-drafted contract will anticipate such a dispute and could save you thousands of dollars in legal fees later on. Keep in mind that you are negotiating a very long term relationship. If the book is successful, the publisher and author (or authors heirs) could be bound together for the life of the copyright. For works published after 1977, copyright lasts for life of the author plus another seventy years. (see my article on Copyright Termination).

A publisher must shore up any weaknesses in a publishing contract. For example, tighten up the contract to ensure it contemplates new technologies. Terms such as “book form” and “electronic rights” are vague terms and should be carefully defined. Just a few years ago, everyone understood what the word “publish” meant and could agree on what the term “book form” meant. Not so, today. (see my article on Electronic Rights).

As the Carnegie Mellon PDF I linked above also stated:

4) Problems if the copyright owner responds – Even if the copyright holder is located and responds, potential users can still encounter problems. In our experience, some publishers have no record of having published older works. We have had to photocopy and send them the title page. Nevertheless, when they have no records, the search for copyright permission dead ends. Furthermore, publishers are not always certain what rights they have. Some appear to operate under the assumption that if a right is not explicitly granted to them in their contract with the author(s), then they do not have that right, for example, the right to make a digital version of the work. Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right.

And then the experiences I hear about through the grapevine, of trying to digitize+republish a lot of these works.

So even if you were successful in hunting down the original publisher + contract + rightsholder, they may just assume: "Nope, no digital rights." Or again, add in all these extra stipulations (PDF ebook only + disable printing/copying/pasting, no EPUB/MOBI, etc. etc.).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

As the Carnegie Mellon PDF I linked above also stated: Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right.

That reminds me of one local author. She wrote some local market YA books in the late 80's to early 90's with moderate success. After her books were not available for years, all rights reverted to her -- or so she thought since that's what the contract said. Since she had created the books on computer, it was a matter of converting her word processing files into epubs and then through Kindlegen for the Amazon market. So far so good.

After 6 months of selling the ebooks, she received a letter from a legal firm informing her that she was not allowed to publish e-editions of her books since her original contract's terms only mentioned physical books so the only rights that reverted were for physical books. The letter went on to claim that the rights for ebook editions remained with the publisher (not her original publisher but the result of multiple sales and corporate mergers). After quite a bit of back and forth, the publisher admitted that they had no interest in re-publishing her books in any form but they had to protect "their rights in their intellectual properties".

Lawyers occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That reminds me of one local author. She wrote some local market YA books in the late 80's to early 90's with moderate success. After her books were not available for years, all rights reverted to her -- or so she thought since that's what the contract said. Since she had created the books on computer, it was a matter of converting her word processing files into epubs and then through Kindlegen for the Amazon market. So far so good.

After 6 months of selling the ebooks, she received a letter from a legal firm informing her that she was not allowed to publish e-editions of her books since her original contract's terms only mentioned physical books so the only rights that reverted were for physical books. The letter went on to claim that the rights for ebook editions remained with the publisher (not her original publisher but the result of multiple sales and corporate mergers). After quite a bit of back and forth, the publisher admitted that they had no interest in re-publishing her books in any form but they had to protect "their rights in their intellectual properties".

What's really sad is that there are probably some judges that would accept that argument.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That reminds me of one local author. She wrote some local market YA books in the late 80's to early 90's with moderate success. After her books were not available for years, all rights reverted to her -- or so she thought since that's what the contract said. Since she had created the books on computer, it was a matter of converting her word processing files into epubs and then through Kindlegen for the Amazon market. So far so good.

After 6 months of selling the ebooks, she received a letter from a legal firm informing her that she was not allowed to publish e-editions of her books since her original contract's terms only mentioned physical books so the only rights that reverted were for physical books. The letter went on to claim that the rights for ebook editions remained with the publisher (not her original publisher but the result of multiple sales and corporate mergers). After quite a bit of back and forth, the publisher admitted that they had no interest in re-publishing her books in any form but they had to protect "their rights in their intellectual properties".

Lawyers occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill

I do not see how that would be legal. If she did not sign a contract, giving the publisher the rights to her eBooks, how do they hold the copyright?
Apache

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

What's really sad is that there are probably some judges that would accept that argument.

There are always idiots

Here's Lois McMaster Bujold (first published 1986)

https://www.goodreads.com/author/160...jold/questions

Another factor is authorial control. Publishers of any sort require contracts and rights licensing which, depending on the terms, can remove the author's control of the book for anything from some set number of years (OK) to term-of-copyright (or as I call it, unto the heat-death of the universe.) This latter is best avoided, although again, a particular author with a particular title and particular other terms may decide it's worthwhile to them. In the era of paper-books-only, one could commonly get these rights back for one's out-of-print titles for the asking, but now that e-books are forever and most publishers are immortal corporations, this is a lot harder to do.
==

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Little Egret,
Reiman publications stated if you submitted a story, they held the copyright and could use it in any of their books or magazines. The owner has since sold out to Readers Digest.
Taste of Home and Country Woman are their big two magazines.

Magazines were different, it was common to register the entire issue with the copyright office, hence Copyright Street & Street (Astrounding SF), but this didn't affect republishing by the author.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

{ . . .}



I would be very interested in learning about the examples you speak of!

I just digitize the books, and I must admit, I am not the one on the side of the nitty gritty contract details. (And each book contract most likely has its own unique twists.)

Kirsch's Handbook of Publishing Law: For Authors, Publishers, Editors and Agents Paperback – November 1, 1994 by Jonathan Kirsch

https://www.amazon.com/Kirschs-Handb...dp/0918226333/

Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract: For Authors, Publishers, Editors and Agents Paperback – December 1, 1998 by Jonathan Kirsch

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091822635X/

Be careful if you do searches. I found some misspellings of Kirsch in titles.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Magazines were different, it was common to register the entire issue with the copyright office, hence Copyright Street & Street (Astrounding SF), but this didn't affect republishing by the author.

Yes, it did. Robert Heinlein spent years in the late 1940's getting his copyrights back from Street and Smith. See Patterson;s biography, Vol 2.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Apache

I do not see how that would be legal. If she did not sign a contract, giving the publisher the rights to her eBooks, how do they hold the copyright?
Apache

The quote originally posted by Tex2002ans, probably explains that with the quote from a Carnegie Mellon PDF: Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right . Under that theory, if the original contract did not mention the rights to ebooks as reverting to the author, they remained with the publisher even if no mention of ebook rights was made in the original contract.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The quote originally posted by Tex2002ans, probably explains that with the quote from a Carnegie Mellon PDF: Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right . Under that theory, if the original contract did not mention the rights to ebooks as reverting to the author, they remained with the publisher even if no mention of ebook rights was made in the original contract.

And any rights not explicitly excluded from reversion revert.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The quote originally posted by Tex2002ans, probably explains that with the quote from a Carnegie Mellon PDF: Other publishers operate under the opposite assumption that if a right is not explicitly denied, then they do have that right . Under that theory, if the original contract did not mention the rights to ebooks as reverting to the author, they remained with the publisher even if no mention of ebook rights was made in the original contract.

This is actually covered by contract law, rather than copyright law. It all depends on what the contract says, i.e. how broad the wordage is. It tends to be decided on a case by case basis.

[darryl]

Unfortunately lawyers make all sorts of claims in letters, often on a very shaky legal basis. Sometimes they even cross the line and make a claim with no basis at all, or contrary to the law. When one party has deep pockets and the other does not, the law often fails to work very well, as no matter how confident the poorer party may be in the merits of their case they bet everything on it, facing ruin if they do lose. Even if you have a 90% chance of winning, do you want to gamble all of your assets on it?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by darryl

Unfortunately lawyers make all sorts of claims in letters, often on a very shaky legal basis. Sometimes they even cross the line and make a claim with no basis at all, or contrary to the law. When one party has deep pockets and the other does not, the law often fails to work very well, as no matter how confident the poorer party may be in the merits of their case they bet everything on it, facing ruin if they do lose. Even if you have a 90% chance of winning, do you want to gamble all of your assets on it?

To quote the Wizard of Id's Larsen E. Pettifogger: "every man is innocent until proven broke".