But I would have no problem changing the law so that a copyright lasted 50 years from first publishing date instead of 100 to 150 years.

I think that would take care of most issues.

As far as the publisher who won’t prove they have the rights…

If you send them a certified letter stating that you believe the rights to this book belong to ________ and that you intend to republish the book unless they offer proof that they hold the rights. If they have proof they will provide it. If not even if they do sue you, you would be on stronger ground having given them fair notice.

Just one more way to approach the situation.

A Will

The idea that it should be assumed that every utterance should be covered under copyright unless explicitly dedicated to the public domain makes no sense to me.

No matter how you cut it, permitting copyright without a “deed” or “title” that is traceable in a central registry makes no sense at all IMO.

Today’s beneficiaries of copyright law are looking only to their own desires, and they don’t give a damn what makes sense.

I’m sure some will think I’m a heretic, but the public domain is important; it needs nurturing, and it’s high time the law was changed to inject a modicum of sanity. (Just my $0.02)

Everything in this post is public domain and I resent having to say so.

Here are several examples of how much burden it will be
on authors and artists:

1) Writers of blogs will have to register their entries
with the Copyright Office every week, month, or quarter.

2) People who make comments in their entries will have
to register their comments with the Copyright Office.

3) Programmers who contribute their code to open source
programs will have to register their code with the
Copyright Office every time they make contributions
no matter how small they are.

4) Photographers who make 100 pictures a day will have to
register them with the Copyright Office every day.

5) Authors who write weekly columns will have to register
them with the Copyright Office every week, month, or
quarter.

6) Kids who write cute stories and songs will have to
register these works with the Copyright Office.

7) Students who produce creative works as the result
of homeworks and projects in schools and colleges
will have to register these works with the Copyright
Office.

And so on.

I think that that these examples illustrate the detestation
that the authors and artists have for the copyright
registration, in spite of some positive benefits in
having clear title and registry of titles. What about
the great burden that the users will bear in locating
the true copyright owners in the future? They simply
don’t care.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

“I agree with your suggestion on the solution to the
problem (central registry of copyright ownership).
However, the chance that it will be adopted by authors
and artists is very small. One of the reasons why
the formal requirement of copyright registration is
eliminated is to lighten the burden on the authors and
artists. While it is a big benefit to them, it is a
disaster to the users including yourself.”

I really fail to see how it actually lightens the burden on authors and artists. Would it lighten the burden on real property owners if there was no registry of titles? I don’t think so. It would make title insurance impossible. If you can’t show clear title you have a hard time selling or financing a sale. I would think that proponents of any version of copyright law would be very much in favor of a central registry.

Thanks for sharing the information with us. I
have heard that very few people took that approach
but they are not completely out of the woods due to
technical copyright infringement.

To Jerry,

The approach that Todd explained is one good example
of how one can evaluate the risk of being sued for
copyright infringement. Lawyers tend to have various
legal theories but I usually don’t trust them until
they are backed by court cases. There is no mercy
and grace in the copyright law. They are found only
in the copyright owner. If a true copyright owner pops
up and he or she is extremely nice and is very
understanding, you are safe. Otherwise, you will find
yourself in water filled with sharks.

I agree with your suggestion on the solution to the
problem (central registry of copyright ownership).
However, the chance that it will be adopted by authors
and artists is very small. One of the reasons why
the formal requirement of copyright registration is
eliminated is to lighten the burden on the authors and
artists. While it is a big benefit to them, it is a
disaster to the users including yourself.

So that you will know, I am not a lawyer in any sense.

Good luck with whatever decision you will make.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

> If a valid rights holder appears, could she not demand
> all revenues whether profits or simply gross income?

My understanding is that he has put all revenue in the escrow account so that he would not have to tap his own resorces to cover the difference between gross and net in the worst case. His hope, however, would be that a reasonable rights holder would accept just the net proceeds based on his sales and expense records.

> Might she also not demand additional damages
> and drag the infringer into court

The attorney who advised him seemed to think that offering to turn over the total gross proceeds would likely keep him out of court. To win any additional award would require the rights holder to demonstrate further damages, e.g. loss of revenue due to the competition, which would be difficult to argue in the case of an out-of-print work. The fact that there is relatively little demand for the works in question (compared to the volume a “real” music publisher would desire) would probably work to his advantage as well.

(I should probably mention here that my knowledge of this situation is purely anecdotal and comes from a year-old exchange on an Internet mailing list.)

I wonder if this approach is not also fraught with risk. If a valid rights holder appears, could she not demand all revenues whether profits or simply gross income? This could be quite expensive.

Might she also not demand additional damages and drag the infringer into court, causing him to expend big bucks on a legal defense?

> Canada�s copyright law, I believe, has a provision where you
> can print book if you can�t find copyright holder with reasonable
> effort. I think that it requires you to put profit in escrow.

I know of one person who has taken this approach here in the U.S. to address a very similar problem.

Composer/arranger Tommy Pederson was already a successful and well-known arranger of big band music when he decided to undertake formal study of composition in the ’50s. During that time he wrote seven truly unique concerti for trombone ensemble which are still of great interest to the trombone-playing community today. Alas, only a couple of these works are still in print, and the rest are in a copyright limbo of the same type that Jerry has described.

An L.A. studio musician who had performed on the original recordings of some of these pieces happened to have had the original charts (sheet music) in his possession after the deaths of both Pederson and his wife. He made a serious but unsuccessful effort to identify the rights holders. Unwilling to permit these works to pass into oblivion, he decided to take a risk and publish them himself.

On the advice of an IP attorney, he has maintained detailed expense records and placed all revenues generated into an escrow account. If a valid rights holder should suddenly materialize he will offer to turn over the profits and cease publication. Until then, however, the admittedly small community of folks interested in this material still has access to it.

I take your points about the survival of copyright, the risk that an unknown owner could pop up at any time, and the seriousness of the decision to dedicate my remarks here to the public domain.

The author’s will as probated proves nothing about the ownership of copyrights he may have at one time possessed, as I understand it. He may or may not have transferred ownership. And under current law a seemingly bona fide unknown owner could pop up at any time within the copyright term. Further, that unknown owner’s claim might be contested by another claimant who holds yet another document that purports to transfer ownership. Additionally, while a state law may exist which places copyrights for which there is no known claimant in the hands of the state, the very existence of such unclaimed copyrights is unknowable under present law. At least that’s how it seems to me.

The solution to all these problems would seem to me to be a legal requirement for a central searchable registry of copyright ownership where all copyrights and transfers of copyright ownership must be recorded.

Not being a copyright lawyer, I’m not certain I’m right and would be grateful to be corrected if I’m wrong.

I have some lingering doubt about living heirs but
I will take your words and assume that the copyright
goes to state.

It seems to me that of all property rights (both
intellectual and non-intellectual), copyright is the
most indestructible one. No matter how much it is
neglected, no matter how much it is abandoned,
copyright simply does not disappear. Only time
can destroy it (that is, when copyright term ends)
or a very overt, affirmative dedication to the
public domain can obliterate the rights in the
copyright.

It does not matter if will is silent on copyright.
I believe that copyright belongs to the category of
personal property. If will does not say anything
about copyright (or any other property), it is handled
according to state law. For my state and assuming
that there is no living heir, Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania could own the copyright even though
there is no action from the state on assuming the
ownership.

In this area where uncertainty abounds, people usually
evaluate the risk of being caught with copyright
infringement. People infringe copyrights daily but
copyright holders do not rebuke or sue them because
their copyright infringement never appear on the
holders’ radar. But, as what Steve said, the true
copyright holder could pop up at any time.

I am very sure that there must be some cases out there
that are similar to your case but I don’t know any of
them. You may want to make an inquiry about the cases
at the mailing list CNI-COPYRIGHT. See
http://www.cni.org/forums/cni-copyright/cni-copyright.html
for information on joining the list.

Dedicating your work (such as comment) to the public
domain is a very personal decision and should not be
made very lightly but is sorely needed in this age where
the percentage of knowledge still remain under copyright
continues to dwarf the percentage of knowledge that is
in the public domain. If you do this with the full
knowledge that your comment may be a moneymaker for
others, so be it. Otherwise, retain your copyright.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.