Thanks for publishing this. I think the SFWA and the NWU papers are highly insightful. I am increasingly annoyed at the presentation of the issue (such as the Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon papers) as a conflict between “what the public wants” and “commercial interests” meaning us writers and artists actually need money.
I do wish someone experienced played up the interests of libraries more. These are clearly motivated by important financial factors involving large sums (getting books free and not having to store paper ones). Also, I wish someone got addressed the idea of writers “owing” the public. My ISP’s spamcatcher catches business queries all the time, some of that i see in graymail plus some which just disappear.
I’m likely to lose my copyright safety just because my ISP has zealous spamcatcher software? Even paper mail gets lost on occasion. Hathi Trust and Google (in keeping with pirates and the firms who profit from their activities) are in the habit of treating literary works as an all natural resource, to be mined for whatever use they can label of it.
Law and police need to place the onus on the third party to verify that they have a right to create and spread works and derivatives online. Placing the onus on web publishers and authors to show infringement is unreasonable and unworkable, and places an undue burden on makers and web publishers simply, while letting exploiters off, and allowing the exploitation to proliferate.
I think there’s a pretty easy solution as it pertains to orphan works. The government sets up a “Bureau of Orphan Works”, that has usage of authorities information like the census, and birth records. This should make it pretty easy to find any heirs to authors who have passed away.
- Conversations among human beings sound human. These are conducted in a human voice
- Leelo Bush says
- 5 (PC LAN cards 2)
- 16 months back from India
- Select Browse my computer for drivers software ~ Locate and set up driver software by hand
- Email marketing – is this something that should be included within the project
- Click it,
Anyone who looks for to create an orphaned work will pay a search charge to this bureau, and if no owner of the work are available, they get a licence to publish the work. I don’t see any problem in setting up such a bureau, as the charge to use it would finance it.
There should of course be a higher charge than is needed to make the bureau break even. Heirs can turn up at a later date, and a fund is required to compensate them should this happen. Is it true SFWA MWA and RWA are no more backing you up with fees? Why are they not listed on your masthead any more?
Check the “About Us” tabs, non-Anonymous. I’m skeptical that the copyright office could do this website directory right and, even if they did, it might be U.S. As Google was blundering into its Google Settlement debacle, I attempted to encourage them to consider an alternative solution that was what’s suggested above. Recently, it came if you ask me that the registry could allow writers to upload a digital copy of what they’ve written. Anyone wanting to find an author could not only query the data source in regards to a name, they could supply a snippet of text message to be run against Google’s text database.
That’s something Google can do quite nicely. One other suggestion. Laws about wills should be amended to always require a copyright clause bestowing the privileges on someone, even it is just their characters. Even successful authors (i.e John Steinbeck) have neglected to do that. Mike, wills have a residuary legatee typically, a person who gets everything not specifically pointed out. That could include copyrights. The point is not that this information is not available really, but that the entities who wish to mass digitize and/or use works without authorization don’t want to bother looking for it. Thanks for publishing. I agree with this position.
It is getting easier to check out books and Google Books appears to be, for the most part, getting away with phoning 90% of a publication a “snippet.” If anyone could have afforded to pay for those books, it’s Google. That said, I’d prefer a nationwide digital collection with valid, transparent quality assurance suggestions and processes. That is the rub. You have to care about copyright to shield it. Too many people are forging forward and declaring that stealing so as to provide something away for the great of others is not stealing. You can find better ways to provide gain access to and a lot of truly orphaned works to target upon.