RE: Difficulty of tracing rightsholders

Here is what I've of some others doing in cases like this. 

First document your complete history of searches and attempted to locate the author or authorized representative.

Set up an escrow account - not sure what would be the appropriate amount -particularly since it sounds like you are not going to be making money - therefore would have no royalties to offer - maybe follow whatever Google is setting up as what they are going to offer to authors for already scanned books. (around $60 bucks IIRC - haven't looked in a while). That sets a precedence amount that you can refer to.

If you are contacted by the author or his authorized rep - you can show that you did pursue due diligence - that you set aside an amount for the use of the excerpt. If they still want the excerpt removed - then comply with the rightsholder's request.





 
 
Don't Write What You Know; Write What You Care About -- Passionately!
 
Carol Hightshoe 
"Call of Chaos" - Book 1 of the Chaos Reigns Saga - Now Available - Double Dragon Publishing

"Chaos Embraced" - Book 2 of the Chaos Reigns Saga - Feb '09 - Double Dragon Publishing
 
Editor/Publisher - The Lorelei Signal / Sorcerous Signals / WolfSinger Publications





> To: [email protected]
> From: yahoogroups2006-wIRBk7EkA6JWk0Htik3J/[email protected]
> Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:06:15 -0400
> Subject: [ebook-community] Difficulty of tracing rightsholders
> 
> Fellow members, I have been trying sporadically since 2001 to find  
> anyone empowered to grant or withhold permission to put up a book  
> chapter on my personal website. The book is _The Gadget Maker_, the  
> author is "Maxwell Griffith"--full name Frederick Maxwell Griffith  
> Jr--and I last raised the issue here in this mailing list in 2006 and  
> acted on several good suggestions I received, none of which panned out.
> 
> While this is mostly a rant to relieve my feelings, I continue to be  
> interested in any suggestions.
> 
> It was published in 1954 by Lippincott, reprinted in paper in 1955,  
> and has never been heard from since. To say that the publishers have  
> been unhelpful is putting it mildly. I wrote, emailed, and phoned  
> Lippincott's permissions office, waited weeks, and simply got no  
> reply at all, which strikes me as downright rude. Persistence at  
> Lippincott eventually only the information that "All of our trade  
> publications were sold to Harper Collins in New York.  We only  
> publish medical books now." No contact names at HarperCollins, no  
> contact names for the author or his agent or his heirs, it was their  
> book once but they feel not the _slightest_ shred of responsibility  
> toward it.
> 
> HarperCollins has a specific permissions form to fill out. I filled  
> it out, point-by-point and mailed it to them. No reply.
> 
> The MIT alumni office shows him as a 1944 Aeronautics graduate, but  
> the President of the Class of 1944 has no information about him.
> 
> whorepresents.com has no information on who represents him.
> 
> The Author's Guild has no information on him.
> 
> I paid twenty bucks or so to find out what Intelius, an online  
> "search for people" service has on him, and the only Maxwell Griffith  
> they know about has an address in Raquette Lake, New York--which I  
> had already found for free from Anywho. I called a number of times  
> and got no answer. Calls to various civic organizations and local  
> businesses in Raquette Lake turned up some pay dirt, and eventually I  
> located his children, who informed me that he'd passed away but was  
> the wrong person--he had never gone to MIT or written a novel.
> 
> A kind person in this mailing list suggested I contact one Sarah  
> Little who apparently does this kind of detective work. I did, and  
> she was unable to find anything.
> 
> The copyright office shows a 1982 renewal in the name of Maxwell  
> Griffith, so I don't have any heirs' names to look for.
> 
> Do not tell _me_ that there is no problem in tracing orphan works.
> 
> It is insane, plumb insane that the copyright office doesn't require  
> rightsholders to maintain updated contact information as a condition  
> of keeping the copyright in force. How much work would that be? What  
> on earth is the justification for _not_ doing it?
> 
> This is a perfect example of an orphan work that has little  
> commercial potential as a novel, but has wonderful stuff in it that  
> would be a shame to lose. The chapter I'm interested in is a picture  
> of the campus milieu at MIT in the 1940s. There are, of course,  
> plenty of novels set at Harvard or Princeton, but let me tell you  
> there are not many set at MIT! It is of great interest... to a very  
> limited audience of MIT alums.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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