On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:16:08 -0400, Sabrina Kilian wrote:

> 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.

Now I need to find my contract, if I still have it.  The first book was 
published in 1994 and declared out of print in 2002 (IIRC), so I may not 
have it any more.  I do remember that there was specifically a clause 
that addressed this issue, because the rights reverted to us (my coauthor 
and I) on declaration by the publisher about it being out of print.

The reason it sticks in mind was that the contract actually had an error 
in it and we had to have a lawyer review it, because the second book was 
being published through a new publisher.  The contract was intended to 
say that if we did another book on the same topic, the original publisher 
had to have the right of first refusal.  But the actual contract didn't 
list our topic, but "Windows 95" (which isn't what our book was about).  
So we didn't inform the first publisher (whom we were unhappy with 
because they didn't do the marketing they said they would) and selected a 
new publisher.  The day the new book was released, we both got a letter 
from the first publisher - declaring the first book out of print.

We were concerned they might try to take legal action against us, but our 
lawyer said that they messed up the original contract and signed it, so 
it's their own fault and they'd have no case, because a contract is all 
about what's written into the contract, not what was *intended* to be put 
in there but wasn't.

> 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.

That makes sense to me, and would clearly be a different situation 
entirely. :-)

Jim

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