I posted my church newsletter to the Internet, which had a poem in it (the newsletter) that was given to me by one of my elder, and it was given to me as “unknown author”. Now two years later, a representative of the author’s staff is written me to say that they are charging the church with copyright infringement and wants the church to pay $5,000 to settle the matter out of court. I honestly trusted the person that gave me the poem and didn’t knw that it there was an author to the poem until now. Do I or the church have any legal standing to get out of this? Any advice is appreciated.

Copyright has always been stated as providing an incentive to create. Its up to society in general to decide just what that incentive should be.

Besides, if you link copyrights to the individual’s decision, then there would be a financial incentive to kill individuals who hold valuable copyrights.

I passed these links to David, who suggested I post them here (oy, he is always looking to make me work for him!) –

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

http://www.templetons.com/brad/linkright.html

– there’s probably much more at that site, but I don’t have the time to venture beyond these two links I encountered today.

yes, the publisher’s rights thing is important and interesting…and yes they take from GPL code etc etc. so i think you’re right on that. there’s an article i wrote about this on Blogcritics if you are interested… you can easily find it but i’m not sure of the link off the top fo my head but it’s there. with many comments that explain this sort of thing…it might be interesting to you.

So, i hope my comments explained more about what happens when you are the author and don’t want your work to be taken from or taken out of context; as a writer myself, i wouldnt’ want this to happen and so can speak from the author’s point of view, but that’s it. The many authors i do know feel the same way and copyright is a huge issue, as you can imagine, with them because they want to retain the rights for obviuos reasons though are willing to give them to a publisher for set period of time for a royalty fee etc etc. ~ i hope that helped explain some (oh, i do know how to spell etc, i just can’t type as quickly as i think at times, so apologies for any errors etc. I’ll try to be more careful.

be well and thanks for participating in this discussion. your comments are thoughtful and interesting. s.r.p.

I’m currently a programmer (and hope to be a real author “someday”) — so I depend on copyright for protection of my works. It is quite possible that I’m used to the short lifetimes of code, and am attributing similar to literature.

I am interested in the rights flow, and would certainly love to read more from the publisher’s perspective — I was not aware of OP/Remainders, and the backlist, from an outsider’s perspective, always seemed to be a “don’t let anyone else use it, while we keep it just in case something external makes it relevant again”.

I can certainly see the point in having copyright protection and not letting works fall into the public domain quickly– Sadi’s example of works being excerpted by sites that have no business doing so strikes home, as I was surprised one day to find my name attached to pornographic spam (they had extracted comments from GPL code to fool certain filters!). Although, contrast this with the “abusive” copyright terms that the owners of “Porgy&Bess” maintain.

I think that the detriments of long term exclusive copyrights are outweighing the motivational factor.
Perhaps the 7 years of exclusivity, then longer period (decades?) in which the work is a restrictive creative commons license (unmodified, with attribution) would better serve to meet the “B” word while not requiring restrictive technologies to thwart human nature.

But within limits I’m still in favor of life + X years since I realize that good publishers can make a mint off their backlists–and share it with authors and heirs. Are the writers and families getting as much as they should? Not necessarily. But that’s still no argument to trim copyright down to seven years. Instead the issue should be a fair shake for writers. Thanks to the new technology, we writers at least theoretically should be able to claim more. In short, I’d essentially side with Sadi on the term issue.

How about a tax on copyright, however–not quite the same as the term issue? I’m open to that. It need not be a burden on publishers and writers and would help free up some valuable out-of-print “orphans.” The extent of revenue from a book could determine the size of the tax.

As for fair use, it’ll be interesting to see what she writes further on the topic this week. My own belief as a civilian, a nonlawyer, is that those four magic criteria leave a lot of room for flexibility and that society is healthier if fair use gets exercised. Once again, however, the B word counts, balance. Sadi is doing a real service in pointing out the risks. Along the way, I find it fascinating to read such details as the way the court system is stacked against the alleged infringer. No matter how you feel about these issues, it’s great to see such tidbits coming out.

Meanwhile continued thanks to Sadi, you and others in this discussion!

David

Yes, books can have a short shelf life but not all. For instance, what about authors like Harry Mathews (one T) or Leslie Fiedler who i published at Godine who are still on bookstore shelves in many places. Should the copyright not remain with them?

If you were the author, and maybe you are an author, i don’t know, would you want your work truly to be in the PD after only seven years? This would mean that anyone could alter the work in anyway, they use it for purposes other than you had originally intended (for example, they could use specific verses and use them totally out of context on say, a porn site, as one example ~ though extreme, it is worth mentioning.

This article was not intended as a debate piece, but to set out the law as it stands and that’s all. We can debate once we understand the laws, but this was merely a jumping off place.

Check back tomorrow or the next day when i have a piece on Fair Use. you may find that more interesting and more along the lines of what you want. Meanwhile, why don’t i publish some general information about literature and book copyright and /or perhaps interview a subrights/serial rights person at a house or a publisher and get their take on the issue or another author for that matter.

Like i said, you may well be and likely are an author yourself which is why i am surprised that you would approve the seven year copyright. I think there should be some limitations and reasonable exceptions but seven years seems way too brief.

Remember too that the author has the right to give up the copyright but in general, it is the PUBLISHING HOUSE that owns the copyright and that is really who you are fighting. Most houses have a boiler plate contract that is pretty much used by everyone in the business, but is changed very slightly from house to house, or as long as i’ve been in publishing, that’s how it has been.

your comments are interesting though, but i’d be interested in your own background and why you feel that books have the shelf life of yogurt, for example…. i think they are a lot longer and what would you say about OP or remainders? The author still gets royalties on those and should. the percentage depends on the deal they struck though average royalties scale is anywhere from 10, 12, or 15 percent and 7 or so on a paperback and 6 for mass market. It’s not very much for the author. But for the publisher, or for someone licensing it, it is usually NOT longer than seven years ~ maybe you knew that? but just in case… those are some basic stats.

cheers ~ s.r.p.

I must disagree with you on copyright length for writers. I find it problematic that copyright terms gets longer while communication gets faster, and the general attention span gets shorter. A book can go from author to millions around the world in less than a month, and relatively few books remain on store shelves longer than a few years. Its unlikely that a book would have reached that far when copyright was first defined to a small number of years within that span!

I think that copyright needs to taper off over time based on the continuing value of the property. The idea of treating IP as real property and requiring an IP tax is appealing in that it will force decisions on what actually has real value.

A scale something like –
first distribution rights get relaxed, when the book is no longer in print. This would ensure that readers can still obtain the title should they seek to.
then, _distant_ derivative rights, where characters could be used, but not in a way substantially similar to the books themselves.
later still, full derivative rights go into the wild, allowing movies to be made, etc..

As it is now, once a work goes into a copyright “dead-zone” where the owner can’t be identified, only pirates can profit off it. This seems rather undesirable…

As it is, what percentage of OOP titles provide any royalty income what-so-ever?

Additionally, unless darknets can be eliminated through hardware enforced DRM with all content signed (eg, walker’s Digital Imprinteur vision), there will always be the reverse pressure of illegal free distribution which will forever shorten the life cycle of print books.

I think it more feasible to go from unknown author -> publisher (who will always need to be there to filter the vast total of human creative output) -> print, and once one work is “successful”, a street-performer protocol model would provide payment for successive titles. New authors have a window where the pirate networks won’t hurt them (no one knows to search for them).

Trying to enforce a model where content is born, lives for a few years, and then is kept locked away but unused for the lifetime of the author and then some, seems unlikely for anything of value.

In conclusion – bring back 7 year copyrights!

cheers ~ SRP

And, Robert, I’m looking forward to your own presentation. The account is all set up for you.

My own fixation is on the need for balance. I think Hollywood owns Washington, and that Jack Valenti’s talk of near-eternal copyright is an outrage. He wants piracy from the public domain–in other words, a multibillion-dollar ripoff from schools, libraries and society at large. But should authors and widows be paid fairly? Yes! A different question. As much as I hate Hollywood-bought laws, I don’t want to see copyright last just 28 years, even with renews included. That’s another extreme. We need life and at least several decades beyond. Books are not computer programs. In that sense, I do agree with Robert on the need to consider the genre.

As for fair use, I see many wise thoughts in a law professor’s essay. The interpretation of the four criteria is most subjective.

Derivative works? In many cases authors might benefit from fan fiction, but I want the writers to maintain control, as long as the material isn’t in the public domain. Just so everything happens within founds. It’s outrageous that Hollywood can demand small fortunates–in fact, maybe even large fortunes–from people using just snippers of material. Home video people should be free to excerpt without fear. But that’s a far cry from taking already-created characters and coming out with competing works.

Meanwhile big thanks to Sadi for having a great ‘tude about comments. We’ll all disagree to one extent or another, but be civil about it.

Thanks to all, in fact! I’m so glad that the TeleBlog is more of a group effort than before.

David

What Robert says is true, that it depends on what genre you are working in in some cases and also, fair use law which will be my next topic.

Nobody wants to hurt anyone’s creative muse to be sure, or perhaps the governement does i can’t speak for them. i think the law was designed in fact, to help those who had already found their muse and written or used some other medium and want to protect said work.

Derivative works are fine as long as they do not take too too much from the original, such as taking the entire concept etc etc But again, there are some things that are simply not copyrightable – ideas, titles, certain concepts, etc. because so many of these things are age-old. It would be like trying to copyright the idea of say, for lack of a better idea, a love poem or even an article about copyright law. Some facts are just facts and you can’t copyright those.

those ideas that come directly from the creator’s own mind though, from his or her muse, those are copyrightable. We could debate length of copyright, but again, i wasn’t sure where the first comment stood on this ~~ can you explain further? that would be useful….

thx.

s.r.p.

Two quick remarks which I’ll go into detail in that essay: There often is a gap between what in fact is the law and what is realistically enforceable. The question becomes: how important is it to stay close to the letter of the law when a)it is practically impossible to enforce and b) it hurts your creative muse?

Other thought: people’s concerns on copyright depend profoundly on the genre they are working in. Each genre has unique characteristics that may color your concerns. A rule which may seem reasonable in one genre may seem ridiculous in another.

If you have the opportunity, it would be nice to get answers to a few questions at some point. These are general Q’s, but difficult to find answers for –

Is “space shifting” a violation of copyright with some fair use provisions, or is it excluded from copyright law because it is not distribution? If its breaking law, does that mean that for penalties, having N copies (without distributing) results in more penalties?

Is an individual liable for mere possession of infringing works, for example, bought from a street vendor/purchased from Russia/downloaded from (former)Napster? If one is arrested (say, at a protest) while having an IPOD, can charges be brought for infringement if one doesn’t have licenses — given the relatively high infringement penalties, this could easily trump trespassing charges?

What is the standard of proof to demonstrate that one is licensed?
Can one download to replace songs, for example, if they have a scratched CD? Is keeping the scratched CD sufficient?

Given criminal penalties for infringement, how is it that record companies can (supposedly inadvertently) infringe copyrights on a large scale and avoid criminal prosecution — is it at the disgression of the DA, or do the settlements retroactively release them from criminal liability?

Suppose I was an evil anti-american pirate (i’m not!), and I wanted to protect myself. I require that all users of my server commit copyright infringement of my original work (with low commercial value), by posting my original poem to online discussion forums. If any particular person sues me for their infringement on my server, can I bring a counter suit against them? Ignoring NET (criminal prosecution) the statuatory amounts should be comparable?

If I read a book over the phone, I am infringing copyright?
What if I answer questions about the book, in an absurdist form. Am I legally allowed to answer questions in this form:
Q: Is “The” the first word?
A: No, it is “A”
Repeat for each word. A computer, of course, could automate this. At each question, it’s a statement of fact (which can’t be copyrighted). But the end result IS that the copyright work has been transfered between two parties.

Sorry for such a laundry list of questions and I apologize if these are too obscure/niche for the purposes of general copyright.