Jim Henderson wrote:
> 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

I was making up a story where a vague contract, which in my mind
transfered the rights to the work (not the copyright) as a time-limited
exclusive, non-exclusive after some time limit, sub-licensable, and I
didn't even consider if it was a transferable license. The story didn't
need it. I haven't actually seen a contract that was worded such that
complete copyright was transfered from one party to another and then
returned at a set future time. Rights to a copyrighted work, sure, but
never the actual copyright.

So it depends on the contract. In photography, and at the art department
of a certain university, copyright transfers are very rarely done. While
in the engineering departments, students sign a form before enrolling in
freshman classes stating that any code they write for assignments or
using substantial amounts of university equipment is considered
derivative work or is assigned to the school. Every field has it's own
expectations.

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