From: Joe Terrasi Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 10:25:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: copyright (no harp content)
Just a side note about copyright.
I have worked in publishing for a number of years, and just by way of coincidence, I had lunch with our permissions and copyright person yesterday. Publishers are often (daily, really) asked to grant permission to reprint material. Many of the people asking for this permission expect that we will always grant it free of charge as a "service."
Our "commodity," if you will, is intellectual property. We are able to employ people to develop this intellectual property because we make a business of selling it. Many of us make our living based on its sale.
I understand that other publishing "cultures," notably academia and certain online publishers, have very different takes on the nature and transmission of ownership of these properties. But I often ask my collegues in those areas to understand that commercial publishing is a very different beast which offers some advantages that their areas cannot. (Just as they offer advantages that we cannot.)
Some of you posit that you're happy to give the rights to your writing away. That's fine, but try looking at it another way. If you sold cars for a living (my dad does, so no cracks... ok, but only a FEW), and these sales put food on your table, you'd feel threatened if your customers all decided that you should just GIVE the cars away. Apply the analogy to whatever you do for a living. Professional writers and editors develop and sell intellectual property for a living.
I have been on a *lot* of mailing lists, and this is one of the few that happens to have some professional writers who contribute fully-formed, authoritative, professional writing free of charge. I am very grateful to Winslow, Jon, Kim, and others for that. But they have every right to manage the rights to those properties as they see fit. This includes asking for payment if they feel it's appropriate.
- ---------
As an aside (ok, I guess the whole POST is an aside) if you're interested in a more specific discussion of copyright and copyright law, there's a group called the "Coalition for Networked Information" that has some interesting resources related to intellectual property. I receive one (of the many) mailing lists they sponsor.
To subscribe this list, send the message: subscribe cni-copyright
to the address: internet:listpr~ni.org
You can get more information on the CNI at: http://www.cni.org/
