[Coco] [Color Computer] The ongoing Hot Coco saga

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 13:24 -0400, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> By the 1990s, my contracts with other publications were more specific (I
> still maintained my copyright and assigned only first publication rights).
> Alas, by 2000 they were even more specific, specifying copyright transfer
> in present and all future media (with phrases like "to be invented") and
> eventually began requiring us to sell them the entire piece as a "work for
> hire", terminating all our rights to our words. There was a protracted
> authors' protest over this nationwide, but was buried in post-9/11 politics
> and the wholesale firing of freelance writers. (Lou Dobbs never covered
> that, you can bet.)
> 


There's hope that the pendulum is swinging back though... now that
everyone has a "printing press." Other than true work-for-hire employees
and contractors, authors should always retain their copyright. All
publishers really need is a license.

An interesting Creative Commons concept is the "founder's copyright" 
http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright/

This is a way of building a time-limit into your copyrights. It's a
contract unlinke the Creative Commons licenses which are a whole
different ballgame. The Founder's Copyright is so you can rest assured
that years after you lose interest in a work but before life+70 that it
will enter the public domain unless you choose to extend it. I think
it's a really cool idea. It doesn't give the author any more protection
than usual, but it gives some insurance that your creations won't be
trapped in copyright legal purgatory like Hot Coco.

-- John.