Re: Re. Hathi Orphans?

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

I'm not sure what you mean by "let go" here. Just because they 
are orphans, they are, by definition, not owned by any existing 
publishing house. They are books whose rights have been 
transferred back to the authors or authors' heirs. What do 
publishers have to gain by joining in an effort to systematically 
identify the status of millions of orphan works, the vast 
majority of which they will never have any reason to use? Given 
that rights and permissions departments at many publishing houses 
are understaffed and overworked, whom do you propose should do 
this extra work, and who should pay for it? There is 
collaboration on a case-by-case basis among publishers. The AAUP, 
for example, has a listserv for rights and permission staff to 
share information like this.

Sandy Thatcher


>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
>
>PS And bravo to Princeton for the OA policy voted by the faculty 
>on itself.
>
>
>-------- Message d'origine--------
>De: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu de la part de Liz Mengel
>Date: mer. 28/09/2011 18:22
>Objet : RE: Hathi Orphans
>
>What makes me wonder is, if the Authors Guild can find owners of 
>orphan works so fast why they don't try to collaborate with 
>these types of ventures instead of suing them?
>
>Liz Mengel
>Associate Director Scholarly Resources and Special Collections
>The Sheridan Libraries
>Johns Hopkins University