Jeff,
> That business model seems
> to automatically exclude
> works in the public domain
You're absolutely right: We don't publish any public domain
titles. And I would be the last person the say that public
domain titles shouldn't be published. This is one of the
reasons that I have mixed feelings (rather than negative
feelings) about what Blackmask.com does.
You wrote: "It is also unfortunate for the heirs of these
writers, who I'm sure would rather have their deceased
fathers or husbands or grandfathers remembered than receiving
small checks from you every six months." Sadly, this is not
universally true; I have met a number of heirs who have
specifically chosen not to have their father's or
grandfather's work reprinted because no one has offered to
send them a sufficiently large check.
You wrote: "It seems as though you're doing a greater
disservice to Mary Chaze by not giving 'Black Wings' a
legitimate paperback reissue than Moynihan is with his POD
reissue." I am not sure I see this -- by that argument you
could say that we're doing a disservice to every author we
don't choose to publish, and while I suppose that's true in
some sense, I think it stretches the definition of
"disservice" pretty much to the breaking point. Moynihan is
doing Mary Chaze a service in one sense (helping to keep her
husband's work and memory alive) and a disservice in another
(reaping commercial gain from her husband's work without
sharing that gain in any way). I am doing her neither a
service nor a disservice; I'm doing nothing at all.
You wrote: "...wouldn't your reaction have been--A) She's
made a deal with someone else or B) It's in the public domain
and I don't want to have to compete with lots of other
potential publishers." I knew (A) wasn't the case, since she
had told me she hadn't made a deal with anyone else and she
wasn't aware of the existence of a new edition. My reaction
was closer to (B), except that I didn't think in terms of
"lots" of other publishers, just one.
You wrote: "Are you telling us that you got to that point
with Mary Chaze and it never came up that the copyright had
lapsed? You still seem to be unsure about it." That is
correct. It never came up that the copyright had lapsed; Mary
Chaze certainly didn't appear to be aware that it had; and I
am unsure whether it has. I don't say that because I suspect
it hasn't -- I'm just saying that I don't know one way or the
other. By default, the assumption should be that a work
written and published in the 1950s is still under copyright.
I imagine that Blackmask.com has done its research and
believes the work to be in the public domain, and for all I
know they're right. But it's also true that for all I know
they're wrong. I am not competent to judge one way or
another.
Purely as a thought experiment, though, consider this: If
someone were ever to assert *incorrectly* that a given work
had fallen into the public domain, I don't think most
authors' estates would be in a position to analyze the
question for themselves or hire attorneys to contest the
matter. Maybe the big estates -- Chandler, Hammett -- could.
But the Chaze estate? The Day Keene estate? Not very
likely.
I am not in any way saying that that's what happened in this
case. I am just saying that it *could* happen in some case.
If it did happen, that would clearly be a bad thing.
You wrote: "I hope you're not ruling out books simply because
they're in the public domain." Alas, we are: Part of our
agreement with the company that produces and distributes our
books is that we will not do any public domain books. The
good news is that while it's true that there are tons of
great PD books that deserve to be reprinted, there are also
tons of great non-PD books that also deserve to be reprinted
-- far more than we could ever get around to, even if our
line were around for many years. So it's not as though we're
passing up outstanding PD titles and reprinting second-rate
non-PD ones.
You might ask: As long as we're only doing non-PD reprints,
don't I think it's a good thing that someone else is doing PD
titles? Yes, I do. I just have mixed feelings about doing it
without any sharing of compensation with the author or his
wife or children when their whereabouts are known. We're
talking about immaterial amounts of money, I'm sure -- and it
is absolutely legally correct not to pay an author (or seek
his permission) for work that is in the public domain -- but
I at least would feel better about the whole thing if
publishers putting out PD editions of books by living authors
or authors with living direct heirs (spouse or children) gave
those heirs something. They don't have to; I can't even say
they "should"; but it would make me feel better if they
did.
--Charles
P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that
some years ago I edited a few anthologies that included some
PD short stories, and I never offered to pay the estates of
those authors anything; fair enough in the case of Poe or
Balzac, but isn't it possible that Jack London has a living
descendant? Or Rudyard Kipling? How come I didn't lose sleep
over that? It's a reasonable question. Part of it, I suppose,
is that these authors have been dead longer; part of it may
be that there's some difference between a short story of a
few pages in a much longer book and a novel that is the work
solely of one author; part of it is that I don't know the
heirs of London and Kipling (if there are any) and do know
the heirs of our authors. But I do not in any way mean to
erect a halo over my head or doodle devil horns and a goatee
on Moynihan's.
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Jeff Vorzimmer"
<jvorzimmer@...> wrote:
>
> Charles,
>
> While your intentions seem to be noble, I think
you're overlooking
some
> points and glossing over others. To turn a profit,
any profit,
after only a
> year or so in a niche market such as this is
fantastic. And in
order to do
> this you've admitted that you have had to select
titles you think
will sell
> and with which you have exclusivity by contract.
That business
model seems
> to automatically exclude works in the public domain,
which is
unfortunate
> since there are a lot of works in the public domain
that deserve
reprinting.
> It is also unfortunate for the heirs of these
writers, who I'm sure
would
> rather have their deceased fathers or husbands or
grandfathers
remembered
> than receiving small checks from you every six
months.
>
> It seems as though you're doing a greater disservice
to Mary Chaze
by not
> giving "Black Wings" a legitimate paperback reissue
than Moynihan
is with
> his POD reissue. Your reasoning also sounds somewhat
disingenuous.
If you
> were actually to the point of negotiating a deal
with Mary Chaze
and you ran
> across the Blackmask edition, wouldn't your reaction
have been--A)
She's
> made a deal with someone else or B) It's in the
public domain and I
don't
> want to have to compete with lots of other potential
publishers.
Are you
> telling us that you got to that point with Mary
Chaze and it never
came up
> that the copyright had lapsed? You still seem to be
unsure about it.
>
> Let me say, Charles, that you are underestimating
your readership.
They are
> a large, but in some ways, a tightly-knit group, who
are shopping
not only
> for certain writers, but also for certain
publishers. You have
built up some
> brand loyalty and there are a lot of people who are
introduced to
writers
> because you republished them. Given the choice, most
readers on the
list,
> I'm sure, would buy your paperback of Black Wings,
rather than the
Blackmask
> edition, especially if we knew some of the proceeds
were going to
the
> author's widow and we could get it at our local
bookstore.
>
> I hope you're not ruling out books simply because
they're in the
public
> domain. I for one would like to see more Charles
Williams, for
example, and
> a lot of his early Gold Medal books are in the
PD.
>
> Jeff
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Apr 2006 EDT