On Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:01:00 -0400, Sabrina Kilian wrote:

> Alice the Author writes a book, sells the manuscript to a publisher,
> Bob, who buys the right to print that book. That may be in straight
> cash, or part of the profit, doesn't matter really. Alice still has his
> copyright, because she wrote the book on her time and not as part of a
> "work-for-hire".

Except that at least in my experience, the contract for the publishing 
rights includes a transfer of the copyright to the publisher for the 
duration of the print cycle.  That's to prevent the author from going to 
a second publisher and assigning publishing rights to them.

If a publisher makes an investment for publishing a book, they want to 
protect that investment.  Rights (again in my experience) revert to the 
author only when the book is declared out of print by the publisher.

Jim

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