> The recent discussions on where to obtain (trade, borrow, etc.)
> out-of-print CP books, most notably the works of Adrian Slack, brings
> up a question in my mind. Though I'm in the publishing business, I'm
> no copyright attorney (though I might ask ours) In the meantime, what
> does U.S. or international copyright law say about the mechanical
> reproduction of out-of-print works? It would seem is copyright stands
> to protec the financial interest of authors/publishers, that it would
> seem without harm to reproduce works where there exists no further
> profit potential for their owners/distributors.
As far as I know (from many years in the music business, where copyright
is king), copyright rules apply to any work that is copyrighted, that is,
any work that exists, until the copyright runs out, _NOT_ UNTIL THE WORK
GOES OUT OF PRINT. The original copyright is good for 37 years and is
renewable to a maximum of 75 years after publication. Copyright laws
exist not so much to protect the profit potential, but to protect the work
itself from unauthorized reproduction or theft. Photoreproduction of an
out-of-print book (or taping an out-of-print record) if the copyright is
still in place clearly violates the rules. The owner of the copyright is
the only one who can permit that kind of reproduction, and remember that
the ownership transfers to the owner's descendents, who are free to renew
the copyright. If the owner is a publisher, be assured that they will
enforce their rights. Also, the mere existence of a work constitutes
copyright, if the author can prove authorship. The formalities of
registration are important and they legally establish ownership for the
community at large, but just because the little "c" in a circle or the
word "copyright" is not included in a book, record, logo, Picasso, etc,
does not imply that it is not protected under the copyright rules. In
other words, if you want to photocopy Mr. Slack's books you must seek
permission from Mr. Slack and his publishers, even though the books are
out of print, until the copyrights expire. After all, if you decided to
mass-reproduce and sell the books from first editions, don't you think the
author and publisher of the source work would seek recompense? The only
difference is quantity, and if all the people that have joined the CP hobby
since Slack's books went out of print photocopied the books for their own
use, that would be quite a large quantity, a pretty substantial
percentage of the number of copies already in existence.
Sean Barry