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To: The_Reader_David
It says nothing about securing exclusive rights to commercial interests who neither wrote nor invented anything . . . .

I have written several books. I signed over my copyright to a "commercial interest" (i.e., a publisher) in exchange for a royalty on the sales of my books. Although the publisher did not write the books, it took care of such things as printing and marketing them.

Do you see anything wrong with such an agreement?

29 posted on 04/08/2010 1:01:07 PM PDT by Logophile
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To: Logophile

I do. Because the publisher is no longer acting as your agent, but on their own behalf.

The thing that is wrong with the current arrangement is brought into sharp focus by the case of Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice”. The goth band Unto Ashes recorded a song with the poem as lyrics, but that track cannot be released in the U.S. because long ago Robert Frost signed the rights to his works over the Henry Holt & Co. As a result, about 35 years after his death, about 75 years after he penned the poem, a commercial interest prevents its use in derivative works of art.

If your publishers are a**holes like Henry Holt & Co., your works will not be able to be used freely by others years after your death. I hope you see something wrong with that.


36 posted on 04/08/2010 1:23:56 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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