[Buddha-l] Conservative (Copyright and copywriters)

[Dan Lusthaus]

Jim,

Joanna's right on this one:

> JK:
> True--but in my case my publisher owns distribution rights,

The publisher puts the author's name on the copyright page after the 
encircled "c", but they own all the practical rights to it. The money goes 
to them (and often no royalties go to the author until a certain critical 
mass of volumes has been sold, a number set high enough by the bean counters 
who devise such things so that authors will rarely see a penny), they are 
the ones who grant or deny permission to "copy" from the work -- so the 
author holds the copyright in name only. The pulishers have all the rights 
concerning making copies.

An author can request of the publisher that it turn the rights over in full, 
which it is not under any obligation to do, though (and many authors don't 
know this), the law tends to support such requests once a book has gone into 
second printing or beyond, so publishers tend to yield. But such a request 
involves a somewhat formal procedure and the good will of the publisher.

Publishers are scam artists.

Dan