[HNW] 1597 Sibmacher

[Lavolta Press]

> 
> 
> 	SCUM!  Still, she has copyright over her individual patterns.  She can't
> reprint them as the publisher put them together and therefore match his
> copyrighted format, but there should be a way around that. 


Book publishers usually file the copyright forms with the Copyright 
Office in the author's behalf.  Even if the author owns the rights, 
which is commonly the case.

But: Who owns which rights depends on the publisher/author contract (and 
I hope there was one). If the publisher explicitly bought "all rights" 
or it was a "work for hire," or the author was a permanent employee of 
the publisher, then the publisher owns the copyrights. Otherwise, 
probably the author does, although some rights would have been licensed 
to the publisher for some period.  (Note that copyright is actually a 
whole bundle of rights, which include a number of derivative works 
rights that can all be separately licensed, or separately sold outright.)

However: Publishers do not usually claim rights to their editorial work 
independently of the author's rights. This is actually legally possible 
in some cases; but given the publisher-author working relationship, it 
is highly impractical. In common practice all editing, no matter how 
extensive, and including the organization of anthologies, is a service 
book (and magazine) publishers provide for authors.

Let's suppose the author contractually owned the copyrights to the book, 
but the publisher claimed them with when filing the form with the 
Copyright Office.

After US Copyright registration, you can correct significant errors in 
your registration form by filing an application for supplemental 
registration. Such errors include misidentification of the copyright 
owner. The necessary form is called Form CA.

On the other hand, the publisher may have in fact filled out the 
registration form correctly, but made an error in the notice on the 
copyright page. (Although, of course, they might have done both.) The 
way to remedy this is to include a valid notice in all subsequent 
printings of the work and if possible, all copies from an old printing 
(think pasted-on labels, like an address label, or, it's clunky but it 
works, rubber stamps). If a copyright case goes to court, there are a 
lot of guidelines about how soon you should do this.  But the bottom 
line is, the sooner the better and on the more copies, the better.

BUT:  If the publisher contractually agreed with the author that the 
author owned the rights, but failed to correctly carry out copyright 
registration, or placing of a copyright notice, on the author's behalf, 
that the author's legal claim to their copyright is in no way impaired, 
because it's the publisher who made the error.  The publisher does not 
get any claim to copyrights they did not contractually license merely by 
  printing a notice wrong or filling out a form wrong.

Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com