Ziff-Davis was famously buying all rights for stories for
their fantasy and sf magazines in the '30s through the '60s,
so probably were doing likewise for MAMMOTH DETECTIVE (or
TALES OF THE SEA, for that matter), as well. But my
understanding is that authors still have a right to include
their own work, uncannibalized, in one of their own
collections, and that attempting legal recourse in response
to a writer's self-plagiarism of a story purchased by a
publisher like Z-D would've been something not worth pursuing
by the publisher. Though, certainly, Ultimate Publishing
buying the rights to those sf and fantasy stories from Z-D
along with their magazines certainly caused bad blood with
the writers, when Ultimate exercised their right to reprint
without payment...
For sharecropping, I believe you are correct. Likewise
scripts for productions. TM
-----Original Message----- From:
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net [mailto:
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net]
"I'm not sure if that's ever been true with writers and thus
the author would own the copyright not the publishing
company. The rights purchased would be limited to first North
American or European or Asian or Wherever and possibly
foreign and paperback too, but there would be a limit to what
rights the publisher owned. I doubt any would have the
ability to sue unless the author were to publish with them
one month and then with someone else in the same covered area
the next."
Interesting, thanks.
However, aren't there literary "works for hire" (the way many
musicians, artists, journalists, etc, were and are screwed)?
For instance, who holds the copyright on the post-Pendleton
Executioner books? Or other series, for that matter? Who
holds the copyrights on all the pseudonymous Brett
Halliday/Mike Shaynes? (Does Dennis Lynds own the copyright
to all of his works or just to those for characters he
created?) I have no idea about the answers to any of these
questions, but I bet it's the publisher, not the hired
writer.
Don't we have a few writers here who have done pseudonymous
work for name franchises like Shayne? Who owns the stories
you wrote?
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