In a message dated 10/18/2004 4:19:45 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Bowerbird(a)aol.com writes:
>>i don't know anything about that.
>>i'm very supportive of people who will
>>have the guts to publish something and
>>take a chance at being dragged into court,
>>if they are making that thing _available_
>>when it was an orphan out of circulation.
>>but again, i don't know about blackmask,
>>so i don't know if that applies, or not...
I agree. Two of the series involved were Doc Savage
and The Shadow. Other people had posted all of
these, and David got them from their sites and
reposted them at Blackmask (I think he did make
other arrangements for the last Doc Savage books,
which had not been posted when the decision
was handed down.). At this point, it was a public service,
and I appreciated it very much. However, several months
ago courts ruled that Conde Nast owned both
series. Whether Conde Nast DESERVES to own
the copyrights, having acquired them by buying
a company that had bought another company
and so on for several steps, is now a moot
point. Conde OWNS them. I know for a fact,
having been in touch with Conde Nast, that
Conde Nast intends to rerelease them, and
expects to finalize agreements on how
to do that by the end of the year.
When the court case wound up, the people doing the
original posting immediately pulled their sites down.
David continued to keep them on his. It is
arguably still a public service, because the titles
still aren't available commercially. But legally,
he is bucking copyright. SO FAR Conde Nast
has not gone after anybody, and is being as
considerate as legally possible with those who
kept the books alive. But sooner or later, if David
doesn't remove them from his site, Conde Nast
WILL go after him.
I am trying to convince Conde Nast that, as they
wait for whatever it takes to get them all in print,
that they allow downloads from Blackmask and
from FictionWise, my favorite commercial e-
book publisher, for the nominal sum of a dollar
apiece, and that they take down the dollar
version when the new version is ready on each
book. I don't know yet what they're going to wind
up doing.
However, because of my personal knowledge of
this particular situation, I would really hesitate to
post any of Blackmask's titles without finding out
for myself what the copyright status is. Project
Gutenberg MUST comply with the law, no matter
what other people do or don't do.
As a writer, I agree a hundred and ten percent
that books should be kept alive, legally if possible,
by piracy otherwise. I don't WANT my books to die
when I do. All the same, once a copyright has been
established and firmly assigned to person or
corporation A, it becomes illegal for person or
corporation B to continue to traffic in that book,
even if the trafficking is free.
Anne
