[HN Gopher] Penguin is no longer the owner of the copyright to T...
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Penguin is no longer the owner of the copyright to The Tao of Pooh
Author : Tomte
Score : 115 points
Date : 2021-10-19 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.benjaminhoffauthor.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.benjaminhoffauthor.com)
| barney54 wrote:
| What I don't understand is why Penguin held the copyright in any
| case. From my experience at looking at copyrights on the
| copyright pages of books, the copyrights are almost always held
| by the author or a trust controlled by the author, not the
| publisher.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Considering Hoff claims Penguin does not have permission for an
| ebook format, I suspect they held a perpetual license to
| publish the book rather than the copyright itself.
| Taniwha wrote:
| I suspect that all of this is complicated because Hoff's books
| include passages and illustrations from the original Pooh ...
| and Penguin likely made getting permission to use them easier
| ...
| burnte wrote:
| Bad contract, I'd wager. He clearly assigned the copyright in
| the early 80s in order to get published either due to bad
| advice or not proper legal counsel.
| rednerrus wrote:
| He was using IP that didn't belong to him. He probably did
| this as a concession.
| schainks wrote:
| Soooo, how do we buy his books now?
| adolph wrote:
| Electronic rights excluded, if Penguin is still selling
| previously printed books and delivering royalties as agreed, does
| the author have recourse?
| bfennema wrote:
| why would Benjamin Hoff create a website about himself and talk
| about himself in third person? ... seems weird to this
| commentator...
| mmastrac wrote:
| It's a common way to write an auto-biographical article.
| spoonjim wrote:
| so that it can be quoted, re-shared, copied, etc. without
| losing context.
| elondaits wrote:
| Yes, but also it could be written and maintained by an
| assistant, publicist, etc. as it's often the case with
| authors.
| nomel wrote:
| Why bother with the overhead?
| mperham wrote:
| He's obviously older, pre-Internet age. He may not be
| computer-savvy and care to maintain a website.
| RobRivera wrote:
| why not?
|
| also, what is weird anywho?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I found myself talking about "myself" in third person when the
| discussion gets philosophical with respect to free-will, as it
| can help convey my beliefs better.
|
| PartiallyTyped stops being the person directly opposite the
| other party, but instead becomes a commentator, one who
| explaining the thought processes of the person that sits
| opposite the other part; it just happens that the voice of the
| commentator is the same as that of the person, and the lips are
| synced, however, for all intents and purposes of that
| discussion, that person is a p-zombie, and the commentator
| somehow manifests into the head of the other party.
|
| The commentator considers the case where the audience may be
| wondering why one would create such a scenario. PartiallyTyped
| uses that scenario to expresses her belief that free-will is an
| illusion. She believes that talking about her brain but
| referring to the p-zombie person enables the other party to
| understand her point of view; that is, that she is the person
| that arises or manifests out of the zombie, the person who
| experiences the world even though she is never in control.
| ncmncm wrote:
| So, is this a reversion along the lines that used to commonly
| occur when blues musicians were able to claw back their copyright
| from whoever they had transferred it to, after enough decades
| (spelled out in statute) had passed?
|
| If so, Penguin does not owe him any royalties unless they
| continue publishing. It _might_ also mean that he doesn 't
| personally have rights to publish it himself, if it depends on
| copyrights somebody else holds and only licensed to Penguin, not
| him.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > It might also mean that he doesn't personally have rights to
| publish it himself, if it depends on copyrights somebody else
| holds and only licensed to Penguin, not him.
|
| Unfortunately the page makes that pretty clear. The AA Milne
| estate still has a copyright on Winnie the Pooh for several
| more years and stated in one of the letters that they are "not
| in a position" to grant him a license (exclusive contract with
| Penguin?).
| mmastrac wrote:
| Assuming his copyright reversion was successful, he's probably
| looking at a decently-large sized actual damages from the
| publisher if they continue to publish.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Not to mention damages for every single copy sold in digital
| format which he allegedly never granted to the publisher under
| the agreement.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I guess now I'll just have to fall back on my copy of "Killing
| the Gilligan Within: Watch Your Way to Wellness" for my pop-
| culture-based self-improvement needs.
| newbie789 wrote:
| The castaways wouldn't have been rescued if it weren't for
| Gilligan's goofy exploits in Rescue From Gilligan's Island. It
| would be suboptimal to kill him.
| harshreality wrote:
| I'm confused about how 17 USC 203 works. Specifically (b)(1):
|
| > (1) A derivative work prepared under authority of the grant
| before its termination may continue to be utilized under the
| terms of the grant after its termination, but this privilege does
| not extend to the preparation after the termination of other
| derivative works based upon the copyrighted work covered by the
| terminated grant.
|
| The naive way I read that is that Penguin can continue to sell
| any work they prepared under the previous grant. They just can't
| make any new editions. Is that the case?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| That's a weird one. Presumably both the two years of notice and
| this term are intended to ensure a publisher doesn't have to
| stop selling/throw away books it has printed in good faith
| under the existing copyright grant.
|
| But I'd be curious whether it will allow Penguin to continue to
| print new books (provided they're identical to the ones they've
| previously printed) or just sell the existing print run.
| Presumably even if they _had_ permission to sell it as an
| ebook, they would have issues continuing to sell it as an ebook
| as formats and standards inevitably change.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| That is true, if and only if what they prepared is considered a
| derivative work, which means it has sufficient originally to
| acquire a separate copyright.
|
| When the relevant copyright act was written, the assumption was
| that this would be things like translations, screenplays and
| motion pictures created thereof, or similar major derivatives
| that are clearly distinct from the original.
|
| Since then, jurisprudence has largely moved towards considering
| even smaller changes derivative works, but I'm not entirely
| sure if a book as laid out by a publisher with added
| illustrations is actually considered a "derivative work" of the
| original copyright in the manuscript. It is obviously
| derivative, as it is derived from the manuscript, but does it
| reach the level of a distinct "work"?
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| In this case he granted rights to the book itself, not to make
| derivative works of it, so I don't think this clause is
| relevant. I think it's saying that e.g. if Penguin had made a
| tv-series based on the book, they would not lose the rights to
| the tv-series when the grant of the book terminated.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > His latest book, available December 7, 2021, is titled The
| Eternal Tao Te Ching, based on the meanings of the ancient
| Chinese characters in use when the Taoist classic was written. It
| is the first translation to employ the meanings of the pre-
| writing brush characters in use 2,400 years ago, when the classic
| was written, rather than relying on the often-different meanings
| of the more modern brush characters, as other translations have
| done.
|
| Translating a thousands-of-years-old text as if the words of the
| time had their modern meanings is a ridiculous oversight that
| could not possibly have gone unnoticed until 2021. The written
| Chinese of 2,400 years ago has been studied thoroughly. What is
| this supposed to mean?
| WalterBright wrote:
| "is one of only 55,000 individuals selected"
|
| Quite a remarkable honor!
| Thoreandan wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| For those who haven't read it - here's the WikiData page:
| <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4154961>
|
| Click the OCLC control number for a local library copy via
| WorldCat, or see the Open Library.
| spoonjim wrote:
| So hilarious that the author of the Tao of Pooh is embroiled in
| an acrimonious copyright law spat.
| Arubis wrote:
| Writing on the subject of exploring how to live doesn't
| preclude setting and enforcing healthy boundaries. If anything,
| it seems to me he's responding appropriately without being
| excessively inflammatory.
| smegcicle wrote:
| i think the humor is in the juxtaposition of the abstract
| nature of chinese philosophy against the abstract nature of
| copyright law, not that the author of one should be somehow
| immune to the effects of the other
| grkvlt wrote:
| > Anyone purchasing [...] any e-book editions of these books
| is violating the author's rights
|
| seems inflammatory to me; someone _selling_ an e-book edition
| is certainly violating his rights, the purchaser is probably
| not.
| ludami wrote:
| Not really. If the seller does not have the rights to sell
| something than someone who purchases from them are in
| effect receiving stolen goods. They may not be
| _intentionally_ violating those rights but they are still
| participating in an action which does just that.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| see also, Harlan Ellison's Gopher Story:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB_hekYXWiw
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I suppose the next step is to sue Penguin for Copyright
| infringement.
|
| It is a testament to how twisted the copyright laws are that they
| result in this sort of situation.
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(page generated 2021-10-19 23:00 UTC)