Re: Hathi Orphans?

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

It's ad hoc and not systematic, No effort has been made, which I 
know of, to investigate the status of orphan works beyond what 
any publisher needs to know to proceed with a project, and this 
information has not been centralized in any one place or shared 
with the outside world.

Sandy Thatcher


>Is this information re: rights and permissions shared with the
>academic community, Sandy?
>
>Thank you,
>
>Claudia Holland
>George Mason University
>
>
>On 10/10/11 6:55 PM, Sandy Thatcher wrote:
>
>> 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