[WEB4LIB] Re: Copyrights and Ebooks

[Walt_Crawford at notes.rlg.org]

Dan answered before I was ready to, and with a more cogent summary than I
would have managed.

Most typically for actual *magazine* articles, the magazine would have
purchased first serial publication rights and could only have assembled the
articles into a book with the author's permission and a separate
contract--but that appears not to be the case here. If the articles were
done as "work for hire" (which they might have been if she'd been a staff
writer for the magazine, for example), the author for copyright purposes is
the corporation in any case.

The lack of a contract is the big stumbling block. Good contracts have
reversion clauses, in which case there should not be an issue; bad
contracts do not have reversion clauses.

The main reason for my followup message is advice to Web4Lib readers who
may at some point write a book:

1. Don't sign away your copyright. Good publishers will have a substitute
clause in their contract-writing software that retains copyright in the
author's name and provides specific rights to the publisher; ask for the
substitution, if the "standard contract that all our authors sign" comes
with a copyright-assignment clause.

2. Insist on a reversion clause: Six months after the book goes out of
print (or six months after notification to the publisher that the book
needs to go back into print), all rights should revert to the author. That
clause gets tougher with print-on-demand services: theoretically, a book
can stay 'in print' permanently by being available through LightningPress
etc. If you care, you might want a subtler clause such as "Six months after
sales and secondary rights decline to a point at which payments to the
author total less than $50 per six-month period, all rights revert to the
author." [Good luck negotiating a contract clause like this; I think that
honest publishers and nervous authors are both finding our way through the
thickets of P-o-D issues.]

3. Be aware of secondary rights--you probably won't want to handle your own
rights, but you should be clear about who gets what. Most publishers are
going to insist on regarding netLibrary as an extension of the print run
(thus paying royalty rates) rather than as a secondary publication (where
the author would typically get 50% of proceeds to the publisher), and will
probably take the same stance on other electronic-from-print extensions
while books are in print. You may have to live with that (I am, for now),
but be aware of it.


What do you do when a publisher says "This is our standard contract and we
don't make changes"? Personally, I'd find another publisher. Your mileage
may vary.

-Walt Crawford, as always speaking for myself only, but speaking from
experience with 15 contracts and 4 publishers-