Book People Archive

Re: copyright

Morning all;
I have followed this thread with passing interest but Rick Miller's post
and attachment "Subject: Scanning a large volume of books From: Simon
Plouffe <simon.plouffe@[redacted] got my COMPLETE attention.
 
His mention of

"...a few public domain sites where people have been working for years
 to build up a library of what- 15-20000 titles? There are several newsgroups
 that post in one month more books than have been posted by bookpeople in
 years. It is common for as many as 1000 titles to be posted in a single
 post. The difference, however, is that these books are 99.9% copyright..."  

I did not know these was being done on a large-scale basis and now am
wondering what can be done about it ... other than the inevitable
journey through the court system. 

Because I appear to be totally out of touch with the real world, can
someone tell me if there are "grassroots" organizations dealing with
this? (i.e other than discussion.)

Also ... a comment about "greedy heirs." My sister-in-law and I have
been fighting for five years to block a former student of a deceased
family member from publishing a badly written "collaboration." What this
means is that the student took the original book, added a couple of
poorly researched chapters and sold it as new. The book in question was
published forty years ago, never generated a large amount of money and
this suit is NOT about $$$. However, the former student it convinced
that if "the family" is "after" her profits. Not so. Sometimes copyright
battles are about reputation.

Susan Hedrick-Chaffin schaffin@[redacted]



Richard Miller wrote:
> After reading Rod Hay's message I just have to respond. I have been
> following the general discussion with a feeling "are these people serious?"
> There are a few public domain sites where people have been working for years
> to build up a library of what- 15-20000 titles? There are several newsgroups
> that post in one month more books than have been posted by bookpeople in
> years. It is common for as many as 1000 titles to be posted in a single
> post. The difference, however, is that these books are 99.9% copyright. If
> you don't like to read you can get the books in MP3 where someone reads to
> you. Any book, any manual, any computer disk, program, or application is
> availably or will be provided upon request. Also availably are first run
> movies - all the current titles. Mr. Hay refers to a few 'nuts' who copy
> books. There are thousands of 'nuts' scanning everything in sight. They are
> posted from anonymous sites using 'remailers' and they come in from phantom
> sites from whatever country you wish. How do they do it so easily? - I have
> included an attachment, if you wish to look at it, where a newsgroup user
> tells the world how he does it with great ease and great speed. How do you
> wrote a book and sell it before someone steals it - I don't have a clue but
> I can tell you every method that previously existed is history. I believe
> books it will be sold online with a lot of hype - with advance sales
> (payment) and then a mass distribution at one time. If income expectations
> are not achieved - there will be no distribution.
> 
> Its a whole new game. Go to your newsgroup and enter something like
> alt.binaries.books; or e-books; or e-book; or book or books, or sounds or
> manuals.
> 
> Rick Miller  rmiller3@[redacted]