WHO OWNS COPYRIGHTS?


We had a little public discussion recently when several people
challenged my statements concerning how many copyrights we had
that were owned by corporations rather than by authors.

The trouble with such discussions, and discussions with others
who depend on what they research indirectly than what they are
able to find out for themselves, is that all that happens is a
nattering of people who are each quoting some source they have
no real connection with, "Throwing clods at clods," as my Dad,
may he rest in peace, used to say.

However, as luck would have it, today I bought a set of books,
more or less by accident at the garage sales, that contained a
half dozen by Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens that demonstrate these
discussions are little more than hot air when the discussions,
such as they are, are only people talking about authorities or
scholars rather than the actual reality of the situation.

This set of half a dozen books published in the 1800's showed,
that even for such a remarkable person as Twain/Clemens that a
deal with the publishers was hard, even impossible to make for
him to make, without selling out his copyrights.

In fact, it would appear that several different situations for
Twain/Clemens interfered with his copyrighting his works, as a
family member is listed for one copyright while his publisher,
whom I won't name, as they are still in business, got a few in
their name.  I'm not refusing to name them for any legal issue
other than that I don't want to draw attention to those whom I
despise, just as I do not mention those who brought up a silly
nonsense set of arguments that corporations do not force their
writers to hand over their copyrights, or no contract.

If someone such as Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens had to bow to the
pressures of forced copyrights in the name of the publishers--
then what chance would/could/should we expect the writers with
more modest offerings might have had.

I prefer to do my own direct research, rather than to rely for
support on experts and scholars who also do indirect research.
I own these books from well over 100 years ago, and I am not a
person who thus has to rely on the opinions of anyone else for
this particular issue.  

In fact, this recalls this issue when one of the participants,
still with us, in a similar discussions about whether I was on
the Internet via the Xerox Sigma V computer, at the U Illinois
Materials Research Laboratory when I put the first of what was
to become the Project Gutenberg electronic library online.

What that person stated as "FACT" turned out simply to be some
list prepared by someone who was not there that they read.

Reading a list of computers on the Internet decades ago should
not be confused with the direct experience of those who really
were there, were really swapping emails across the continent--
and most particularly--were really posting the first files for
free download that would start the eBook revolution.

As I say to all those who would overly rely on expert/scholars:

"DON'T CONFUSE THE MAP WITH THE TERRITORY!"

There is reality on the one hand, and reports of reality on the
other hand. . .two totally different things.

Of course, from your own individual points of view, you may not
know one of us from the other, other than in one case a person,
also to remain unnamed, admittedly was not there, but only read
a list and then claimed that list as "FACT," while another says
they were actually there.

Who would YOU believe?

Someone who admits to reading a list made second hand without a
visit to each of the computers in question. . .what is it their
legal definitions call it. . ."hearsay?". . .but in this case a
case of "double hearsay" when we hear from one person who got a
report from another person.

I was there, and I own these Twain/Clemens books, I do not need
to ask someone else in these cases, other than to confirm those
facts if I should so choose.  This is not a case of hubris, but
simply a case where I don't need to rely on second hand report,
or third hand, as the case may be.


Conclusion

Don't believe what people tell you is fact, look it up yourself
to make up your own mind.

The louder someone yells "FACT" the more it should be confirmed
by several independent sources.

The trouble is that the extremists have recently become good at
muddying up the waters via semantic differences, misquotations,
changing the subject, etc.

The subject here is aways how to get the most eBooks to readers
all over the world.

Everything else is just a distraction.

In this case, the history of copyright is rampant with examples
of just how much those who promote copyright are willing to say
and do to remove rights from both authors AND public domain.

Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens is but one single example of millions
of people who have lost their rights under copyright pressures,
readers and writers alike.

We have recently seen lawsuits won by groups of authors who had
their copyrights violated via electronic reprints, anthologies,
etc., that were not specifically sold to their publishers.

However, without such large groups to foot the million dollars'
legal bills, or without millions of your own dollars to spend--
even someone such as Mark Twain had to sell out to publishers.

Every copyright law pushes as far as possible to eliminate such
rights as readers and writers have, from the first failed laws,
such as I refer to elsewhere as "The Statute of Mary," to those
most recent changes known as "The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act."

Copyright was invented solely as a reactionary political move a
group called "The Stationers Guild" created to regain monopoly,
once they had lost it to The Gutenberg Press.

It took 250 years of failures on their part, but finally effort
proved too much for Queen Anne, after it was rebuffed by Queens
and Kings of England from before Henry VIII to post Elizabeth.

The Stationers understood one thing:

You can lose for hundreds of years.

You only have to win. . .once.

After The Statute of Anne, nearly every new government added in
their own version of the same law, right down to the numbers of
years for each term of copyright.

Today's copyright laws are direct descendants of fierce lobbies
over centuries by a group of people who simply would not admit,
for better or worse, that their monopoly over publishing ended,
with a bang, with the invention of The Gutenberg Press.

Today's US laws were lobbied in by The Disney Corporation and a
descendant of The Stationer's Guild known as WIPO, descended as
a modern corporation from the earlier European publishers union
efforts to spread copyrights in the 1800s.

Little has changed in the ways copyright laws are written, each
one is written by the publishers long before it is laws written
by governments around the world.

From the modern US Supreme Court case of my friend Eric Eldred,
who took my place when I realized the case was doing more harm,
and no good at all, who will tell you that the Disney corporate
suits were front and center while he was relegated, literally--
to the back of the bus--to the original failed copyrights of an
utterly distraught Stationers Guild, the publishers openly show
themselves as the source of the copyright laws.  No disinterest
on their parts, they are the actual plaintiffs or defendants of
these cases, whether named or not, and they don't hide it.

Where is The World Public Domain Office, or the United States?

There are countless copyright offices to create monopolies from
one end of the world to the other for publishers, but where are
the offices to protect the public domain?!?!?!?!?!