Re: Re. Hathi Orphans?

[Alex Holzman <aholzman@temple.edu>]

I'd like to stand this on its head if I may.  If I were 
undertaking a huge venture that might involve usurping rights I 
legally don't own, I would think it my responsibility to try all 
I could to reach those rightsholders. Did Hathi Trust reach out 
to the Authors Guild to try to work with them? (And by the way, 
the Authors Guild is NOT a publisher, so why talk about how 
publishers should be the ones reaching out here?  The lawsuit 
comes from an authors' organization.)

>From where I sit it was/is Hathi Trust's responsibility to go the 
extra mile in sorting this out.  I don't know if they include any 
Temple books whose rights reverted back to the author, but if 
they do, I'd have been/would be glad to put them in touch with 
the current rightsholder or say that we don't have any contact 
info regarding that.  To my knowledge, we've received no such 
inquiries from HT.

Alex Holzman
Director
Temple University Press
Email: aholzman@temple.edu
http://www.temple.edu/tempress


On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 6:53 PM, <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca> wrote:

> This is a marvellous point. If publishers honestly collaborated
> on the task of identifying genuinely orphans, and if they also
> made an honest effort to let go what has no obvious economic
> value (in other words, get rid of the "just in case" mentality),
> we could work together far more harmoniously.
>
> Jean-Claude Guedon