Re: adobe/o'reillly publishing?

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> i18n@... wrote:
>
> No other copyrights are mentioned on the copyright page. Every
> contributor signed a copyright release form.

yes, were this an actual project, the complete set of all those forms
and any other intellectual property contracts that any interested
parties and OUP have entered into would be key to deciding the best way
to proceed. The devil is in the details. If there are no agreements,
then a letter from OUP stating such would be sufficient.

>
> Very rarely, in a collective work one sees that one or two articles are
> copyright © their writers rather than the publisher, but this is very
> unusual, and it's quite likely the the publisher would rather reject the
> contribution than allow it to appear in the collective work without
> owning the copyright.

I agree, but I have read it is becoming more common, especially in
journal publishing, especially with respect to pre-print and other
online rights. It is a rapidly evolving area which is why it would be
critical to know who signed away what and who still has what.

>
> > The other critical issue is not who owns the copyrights, but if the
> > rights to derivative works have been otherwise assigned.
>
> I think the biggest parts of the contract are about that topic. Even in
> 1992 OUP knew what it was doing.

Yeah, derivative rights have been key to such contracts for a long long
time (hundreds of years?). Whether or not that includes related works in
new media not yet foreseen at the time of the contract is an evolving
area of law, and not settled, which is why I bet the current OUP
iterations of those contracts will specify clearly that rights either
are or are not (likely "are") assigned to OUP for all conceivable media,
known now or not, in perpetuity. I think NYT faced a backlash in the
dot-come era when they wanted to force their free lance writers to
assign all such rights - it was played out in the press. But I would
think it is pretty standard now, unless you are in a good negotiating
position (which is rare).

>
> Did you forget to add "IANAL" there?

OK IANAL, but I haven't offered legal advice - only a suggestion to
check on some topics and resolve them to your satisfaction. I don't care
how or even which direction you choose to do that.

> the paper it isn't printed on. (Especially when said individual was not
> familiar with the phrase "work for hire.")

Said individual is plenty familiar with "work for hire", and some of the
subtleties involve in it - which you seem not to be, feeling "work for
hire" and a copyright notation in a book are sufficient information
about the state of a series of contracts regarding intellectual property
to make a financial decision on. Sheesh.

Instead of putting words in my mouth about not being familiar with a
term, be a man and quote me on it.

Best,

Barry

> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...
>
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