[projectaon] Re: Possibly more on Trevor Newton
- From: Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:22:44 +0000
David Davis wrote:
The copyright owners you moan about will have left those copyrights to
their heirs in their wills.
So, they wanted them to have them, and, implicitly, were happy to let
them control the copyright as they wished.
If John Cage, for instance, had though his heirs were nitwits, he would
presumeably have given the copyright to someone else...
Ouch! (But so true!)
While I understand (and can agree with) the desire to track down the copyright holders, in all this
thread /I haven't seen any useful or helpful advice to help us do so/. Those who are intent that we
need such permission, could you perhaps come up with some good ideas to track down the current
holders of the copyright? Because right now, I don't see how we can. Which seems to make posthumous
copyright utterly pointless, since no one can actually use the product in question as no one knows
how to contact the person who holds it!
It's quite clear that Red Fox/Random House have no intention on responding to our enquiries (about
this, or perhaps about any matter) so they, despite probably being able to contact the current
holders, seem determined to not hand over such information--quite understandable, if you think about
it. An elderly chap likely left his copyright to his elderly wife, or not-so-spring-chicken heirs.
Do they really want to be contacted about something they did not create?
Fan-illustrating an entire book takes *time* and that is something we don't have if we want to keep
our release schedule on track for this year (and I personally do). Also, fan-artwork, while nice, is
not representative of the original published work, which is our intention. I'd say it's probably
better to release without artwork rather than with fan-artwork, if they are the only options.
Ideas? Thoughts? Psychic detective-work?!?
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon
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