Re: Re: Amazon remotely deletes 1984

On 7/26/09, joseph harris <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: "Erica Frank"
>
> Sorry, Erica, but this isn't so. It is the work, published or unpublished, that is copyright, and the ownership is not affected.

Ownership is not affected. But what can legally be done with the
content, can be affected by publication.

>  And I wasn't just talking about length of rights, but
>  > copyright protections--they're stronger for unpublished works.
>
> How do you make this out? Only in the US and one or two other countries are protection
> of *published* works stronger if they are registered at the copyright office. This is counter
> to Berne, of course, but a relic of US copyright-past.

Published works have more protections (in the US) if they're registered.
Unregistered, unpublished works (like a private diary, or incomplete
research notes) have more protections against fair use excerpts and so
on.

(New) Published works are protected for Life + X. Unpublished works,
published posthumously, are allowed to be copyrighted by the publisher
for 25 years (in the UK, as I've been told; I'm unclear on US laws
about unpublished works released posthumously).

If unpublished works discovered long after the author's death are
immediately in the public domain, there's less incentive to publish at
all, if anyone can turn around & release copies cheaper.

However, exact copyright length on unpublished works is not mostly
what I'm concerned with. Rules like copyright protections in different
countries change based on publication, and fair use restrictions are
stronger for unpublished works.

The point is--published and unpublished works are *different*. That
means we need a clear definition of "published"--and we don't
currently have one.

>  > Paladin Press was sued for aiding & abetting a murder, for its book
>  > "Hit Man." But in that case, there was no question that they selected
>  > & influenced the content of the book.

> I also cannot imagine that that was under copyright law. It seems much more
> akin to conspiracy or incitement.

Something like that, yes. The point is that the publisher can be held
liable for the contents of a book; if Amazon is "publishing"
Kindlebooks (they certainly are for the user-submitted ones, otherwise
those books are unpublished, a ridiculous notion), they might be held
liable for violations of copyrights that occur with those books.

>  > I also believe we need a lot of awareness-raising; I don't think most
>  > of the general public really understands how copyright changed when
>  > works no longer needed to register or even affix a copyright
>
> Outsisde the US that has been the way for over a century.

It wasn't particularly important until copying, especially digital
copying, became simple & cheap. More and more, copyright law is
looking like an artificial scarcity to create demand--and while that's
a useful mechanism to encourage authors to publish ebooks, it's
getting in the way of a lot of scientific and creative efforts that
aren't looking for a profit.

-- 
"I follow Eris blindly in all things. That She is the Goddess of Chaos
simplifies this immensely."  -- Christian the Pagan


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