SF author thinking of donating rights to PG
Hi, Have you read this interview (<http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=1&scid=6&iid=2920>) with science-fiction author Charles Stross? He would not like disappearing into obscurity, so just to be sure he keeps getting published, he is contemplating donating the rights to one of his books to Project Gutenberg once it has stopped making him money: "95% of authors go out of print for good within a couple of years of their death. I don't want to see my literary estate die with me. So I'm currently considering ways of ensuring that when there's no longer any income to be made from them, my copyrights will go somewhere like Project Gutenberg where they can be made available for free. Hopefully this is a long time off, though ..." -- branko collin collin@xs4all.nl
On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Branko Collin wrote:
Have you read this interview (<http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=1&scid=6&iid=2920>) with science-fiction author Charles Stross? He would not like disappearing into obscurity, so just to be sure he keeps getting published, he is contemplating donating the rights to one of his books to Project Gutenberg once it has stopped making him money:
Charlie's wife Feorag is a volunteer at Distributed Proofreaders, and a stalwart member of our Raseff team. -- Karen Lofstrom Zora on DP
Sounds great! Let's do something to encourage this! ;-) <Michael On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Karen Lofstrom wrote:
On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Branko Collin wrote:
Have you read this interview (<http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=1&scid=6&iid=2920>) with science-fiction author Charles Stross? He would not like disappearing into obscurity, so just to be sure he keeps getting published, he is contemplating donating the rights to one of his books to Project Gutenberg once it has stopped making him money:
Charlie's wife Feorag is a volunteer at Distributed Proofreaders, and a stalwart member of our Raseff team.
-- Karen Lofstrom Zora on DP
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My recollection from the last time this was mentioned is that PG has had a few authors causually mention ideas like this over the years, but no one has actually gone ahead with it yet. I gather it would require some formal written statement, legally relinquishing copyright at a certain date, or under certain conditions (perhaps such as being out of print for a certain number of years.) I could understand most authors being reluctant to do that. Andrew On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Branko Collin wrote:
Have you read this interview (<http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=1&scid=6&iid=2920>) with science-fiction author Charles Stross? He would not like disappearing into obscurity, so just to be sure he keeps getting published, he is contemplating donating the rights to one of his books to Project Gutenberg once it has stopped making him money:
Andrew Sly wrote:
My recollection from the last time this was mentioned is that PG has had a few authors causually mention ideas like this over the years, but no one has actually gone ahead with it yet. I gather it would require some formal written statement, legally relinquishing copyright at a certain date, or under certain conditions (perhaps such as being out of print for a certain number of years.) I could understand most authors being reluctant to do that.
They don't have to do that. They merely have to license PG with perpetual, non-exclusive, world-wide rights to distribute the book on a royalty-free basis. See the FAQ, question V.71. http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/V-71 -- RS
participants (5)
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Andrew Sly -
Branko Collin -
Karen Lofstrom -
Michael Hart -
Robert Shimmin