On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Rob Hudson <caveat...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is where I get a little confused over concepts. Let's say you > wrote a book with diagrams for 50 models, and retained the ownership > of the designs. Could you then sell the diagrams for the 50 models to > someone outside of the collection of the book? Or a subset?
It all depends on the precise language of the contract the author has made with the publisher. "Retained the rights" is not actually specific enough to answer the question. (*What* rights were retained? Digital? Print? The work as a whole? Etc., etc.) Absent any other agreements, under (US) law, authors are given lots control over anything that involves "making copies" of their creative work. (Hence the "copy" in copyright. See the endless copyright discussions of the past here on the list for more details than anyone wants.) But when they enter into agreements with someone (like a publisher) which change who gets to have that control, then what matters is the language of the contract, and that could be almost anything. (Subject, of course, to the limitations of contract law - you can't make people do illegal things in contracts, etc.) Though I have not published any books of my own, I have seen the language of a number of actual (origami book) publishing contracts, and the reassignment of rights they cover can be extensive - publishers want very much to be able to use the material they have published in as many ways as possible, and sometimes require that their rights to it be exclusive. Meaning that often the author cannot, according to their publishing contact, redistribute any of the material in any other form. So to me, the ethics question for the author in Rob's case above is "are you going to live up to your contract?" (It's also a legal question, since the author could be sued for failing to honor the contract.) In the old days, if you didn't like the terms of a publishing contract, you were pretty much stuck for options, and it was agree-or-don't-get-published; these days, there are lots of other choices (albeit without many of the advantages Robert talked about in his post) which can give you lots more flexibility. It's a tradeoff. And I guess fundamentally, to me, the legal right (copyright) is also the ethical thing, here: we should give an author control over how their stuff gets used/consumed, including it not getting distributed at all, and honor their wishes. I don't see what right *I* have to *your* creative output; it's the result of your investment of time and energy, and is *yours*. If the end result is of value to me, then you can ask for compensation for giving me access to it, if you want to, and you should get to say how it will be distributed. If you, as author, choose to publish the work through traditional channels, then I, as consumer, should consume it that way. Anything else is, at the least, disrespectful. And if it's not available somewhere... well, it's a bummer, but it's just not available. "But I want it!" seems to be a perfectly valid modern justification for theft. Seriously, is the only reason everyone doesn't steal books from bookstores that they might get caught? Why is it ok to take something in digital form, but not from the bookstore? In practice, I find origami authors unbelievably generous and lenient - they give away diagrams online, they donate their diagrams to origami society publications, they allow consumers to publish photos of folded pieces in blogs and flickr and the like (which they could, if they wanted to be picky, complain about), they grant approval for pieces to be taught in a variety of venues... and mostly all they want for all those uses is credit! I certainly don't begrudge them also choosing how their stuff gets distributed, nor what they ask for compensation. I may not feel that something is worth what the author wishes to charge, of course, but that's *my* right, to exercise. And if something you want is unavailable to you, well... there's an awful lot of origami out there - you might find something else for free, you could support another author who is distributing their work in a way that you can get it, or you could design it yourself... Surely there's a pirated version of "Origami Design Secrets" out there to get your started for free. :P Anne
