Is a copyright claim diminished by an owner&#39;s refusal to publish? Alan is aware of an obscure old book that is out of print, and republishes it. Brenda Books, Inc. objects and sues Alan since they own the copyright. This is not disputed. Brenda Books' claim is a tremendous amount of money. The book is indeed out of print, and Brenda Books claims the reason it's out of print is the low probable sales don't justify the cost of reprinting it. &quot;We don't cede our interest in the work; it's just not profitable to reprint it.&quot; Thus it is a &quot;dog in the manger&quot; scenario (in which the dog beds down in the cows' food trough, neither partaking of the cows' food not allowing the cows to do so either; thus maliciously wasting the valuable resource to no profit for anyone.) Note that this is a not a &quot;Disney Vault&quot; scenario where the definitely-profitable resource is made artificially scarce to increase its value further: this is a book that the conventional publisher doesn't really have a pathway to make money on. But setting aside the social or moral issues... How does the fact of Brenda's unwillingness to print the book, affect the damages? Can Alan diminish damages by showing Brenda Books wasn't doing anything with the work anyway, and thus, doesn't really have any lost profits to claim against Alan?
When you own something, you get to decide what you do with it There is no obligation to make a copyrighted work available and the fact that it isn’t is not a defence to a copyright infringement. Brenda Books is entitled to either damages or an account of profits. Arguably, they have suffered no damage, so Alan’s profits are the better target. In some jurisdictions, such as the United States, statutory damages (a set dollar amount for each infringement) is available even if there are no damages or profits.
Yes it does. You can do anything at all with a public domain work, and it is not an infringement of copyright. For the matter of that, one could write a forwards attributes to Justinian or Genghis Khan, who newer wrote any such forward at all, and it would not infringe any copyright, nor any right of publicity. It is possible that such claims would constitute False advertising. But if the claim is &quot;obviously absurd&quot; then such laws usually do not apply. What is &quot;obviously absurd&quot; is a judgement call. I recall seeing books in which a &quot;foreword&quot; is attributed to a fictional character. If such a foreword is attributed to a person who is living, that person might have a right to sue under a publicity right theory. In those jurisdictions where such rights last beyond the author's life, such a suit might be filed by an heir within the time such rights are valid, which varies widely.
In the US, the original author still owns the copyright, unless the original work was out of copyright (in which case no one owns the copyright): copyright is not granted for just pressing a "scan" button, and mechanical reproductions are not eligible for copyright (copyright protects creativity, and a scan involves zero creativity). To quote 313.4(A) ("Mere Copies") of the Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition: A work that is a mere copy of another work of authorship is not copyrightable. The Office cannot register a work that has been merely copied from another work of authorship without any additional authorship. [...] Examples: [...] Photocopying, scanning, or digitizing a literary work. That doesn't necessarily mean the repository can't put any restriction on your use of the copy; the repository may have a terms of service. Terms of service are rooted in contract law, not copyright; just because the work is in the public domain, doesn't force the repository to show it to anyone who asks, and they can force you to agree to a contract first. The enforceability of that contract is fact-dependent.
Copyright still exists even if you don't know who owns it In this particular case, however, the copyright has expired - UK copyright lasts for 70 years after the last author passes away. For a death in 1918, copyright expired on 31 December 1998. For other cases where the author was still alive in 1940 (for this year - 2020) but has since passed, the copyright belongs to their heirs and assignees. It's possible that you don't know who that is. It's even possible that they don't know that they own it. Doesn't matter, it's still copyright protected and those people (whoever they are) can enforce their rights if they want to. When you think that everything everyone ever writes, records, photographs, paints, draws etc. will have copyright for 70 years after their death and that most of that stuff has little to no value, is usually not explicitly dealt with in a will, and their heirs will generally not think to deal with it or pass it on in their will it's no wonder the world is full of orphan works. Some copyright legislation deals with this; the UK's does. You can pay the government for a 7-year licence for orphan works. If the right's holder ever comes forward, they get the fees collected.
The audio book would probably be an infringing derivative work because the client could redistribute it once the client received it. It sounds very much like a product that is regularly sold by merchants relying on copyrights. Conceivably, simply reading a book aloud to a client in some sort of streaming context that could't be shared with others or replayed would merely be fair use, much like hiring a baby sitter to read a book aloud to your children would be clearly fair use. If there were an automatic text to sound converter as opposed to an individualized performance, it might not be considered infringing. There are people with programs that do this who haven't been sued, but the boundaries haven't been explored very thoroughly. Honestly, there isn't a lot of guidance in this area from statutory language, and the questions would often not be guided by much case law involving similar facts. Your intuition living in the modern world is probably almost as good as a lawyer's in this situation.
Almost none. It is a legacy of the era when copyright protection was a function of year of publication. Including it is appropriate, however, to meet the formal requirements for a legal notice of claim of copyright which has some procedural implications if it is omitted.
This appears to mean that the author, while retaining copyright, is allowing anyone to make copies without asking permission from the author. This would seem to be similar to a CC-BY license, or perhaps more exactly a CC-BY-ND license, as the author has apparently not granted the right to create modified versions or other derivative works. This does not require one who makes such copies to distribute them free of charge, unless there is another provision not mentioned in the question. Amazon, or anyone else, would be free to sell copies at any price they cared to ask. If the author wanted to limit the sales price, that would take another provision, and might not be enforceable.
If the suit is to be filed in the US, the first step is to officially register the copyright. No US copyright infringement suit can be brought until the copyright has been registered. The registration process includes a formal declaration as to who the author is (or authors are). (I believe this statement is made under penalty of perjury.) Once the registration issues, the certificate of registration is admissible evidence of the facts stated in it in a us court. Indeed 17 USC 410 (c) provides that: (c) In any judicial proceedings the certificate of a registration made before or within five years after first publication of the work shall constitute prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate. The evidentiary weight to be accorded the certificate of a registration made thereafter shall be within the discretion of the court. In other countries, the testimony of the plaintiff in a copyright infringement suit is itself evidence that the work was created as stated. In either case, it is possible for the defendant to challenge the assertion and claim that s/he is the actual author. Showing when and where the work was first published can usefully corroborate the plaintiff's testimony. Having included a copyright notice in the initial publication may be of value, but if the notice only lists the pen name, it is not of much value. Records of the platform on which a work has been published may help in verifying the identity of the author. So may the testimony of others who saw or read the work, or who were told about it by the author. An author's own copies may be of value, if they carry a timestamp, as computer files generally do. But computer timestamps are not usually secure. Timestamps on email generally are reasonably secure, and could establish that the content existed and had been transmitted on a specified date by a specified person. But none of this will matter unless the defendant claims that the plaintiff is lying in claiming authorship. Unless that happens, the plaintiff's testimony will usually settle the matter. A person whose work seems to have been infringed would usually be wise to consult a lawyer with experience in copyright suits. Such a lawyer could advise if it is wise to bring suit at all, and if it is, what evidence will probably be needed.