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Subject:RE: What's the definition of a published author From:"Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- Users -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Dec 2003 13:44:04 -0500
I was thinking of what I remember -- albeit a little shakily -- reading on the copyright registration Form TX that I got from the Library of Congress. You had to submit copies of the work and the required number of copies was different for published and unpublished works. I also seem to remember that if you copyrighted your work as an unpunished work, you had to be careful about making and distributing copies, because if you distributed more than X number of copies, your work would legally be published and would cease to be protected under the copyright you has registered.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- fiam -dot- net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 1:38 PM
To: Downing, David
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: What's the definition of a published author
Copyright precedes publication. It is the right to control who can make
and sell copies. If you are the heir, say, to Richard Rodgers's works,
you get to decide whether or not the Sheboygan Junior High School Drama
Club can perform Oklahoma! If you like, you can prevent anyone from
performing Oklahoma! Or you can let everyone perform it for free. Or you
can run off copies of the score on a mimeograph and hand them out on a
street corner. Or you can pay Vantage Press to print and distribute
copies of the work. Or you can sell the nonexclusive performance rights
to a Broadway producer for $10,000 per performance. You can do any of
those things.
And you have the same choices if you write the Great American Novel. But
you're not a published author unless a publisher pays _you_ for the work.
Downing, David wrote:
>Is that true in the strictly legal sense, though -- i.e., for copyright
>purposes?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peter Neilson [mailto:neilson -at- alltel -dot- net]
>Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 6:48 PM
>Subject: Re: What's the definition of a published author
>
>
>No. Published means that someone has accepted and printed an article
>or a book that you submitted, either on speculation or on request. If
>your book were published by Vantage or some other subsidy publisher,
>then YOU might say you were a published author, but nobody else would.
>
>On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:16:45 -0800, Wade Courtney <courtney -at- hsq -dot- com>
>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
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