Well, you know, he was a teenager. He had a hard life.

God, he did do that in all three books, didn't he? See, if I stop and think about it, yeah. But reading it, it's never bothered me.

Sorry about this - it's a crosspost from Bitches, but NovaChild asked a specific publishing question, and I was afraid the answer, in Bitches, might be missed. So... Also, I'd love some other takes on this question, which is a good one.

For NovaChild:

Current American copyright law says that a copyrighted-protected work is protected for life-of-the-author + 70 years or, in the case of corporate works, 75-95 years. I am of the opinion that this amount of coverage is completely ridiculous, and is bad for the country both economically and in terms of easy access to information.

What I want to ask deb, as the only person I know who makes her living creating works that are meant to have a more than ephemeral life (well, Tim too, I guess. Maybe I'll X-post this to Minearverse.) is: how do you feel about this? Are your works so important to you that you think they deserve to continue providing income and respect to your family and estate 70 years after you die? I just don't feel I really have the perspective to judge, and would like to hear an opinion from such a sensible-seeming creator.

NovaChild, I'm not sure I understand - are you separating the question of income from the question of public use? Because, if so, do you feel all books older than 20 years after the death of the author should be given away free? Because if they're being sold, income is being generated, and that income has to go somewhere. And I'd rather my family got it than a nameless conglomerate publishing company.

A hypothetical example: A woman writes an amazing novel at 18, while pregnant. She dies in childbirth. Her husband then spends the next ten years shopping it around, trying to sell it as a memorial to her. He finally does, for a modest (say, $1000) advance. It becomes a cult favourite; ten years after that, it becomes a best-seller.

Using the 20-year mark, her family sees that $1000 advance, her child is 20, and the publishing company - none of whom likely even knew her - starts having caviar for lunch.

On the public availability issue , I'm somewhere in the middle. I'll probably incur screams of wrath from other authors I know, by saying that I think the current allowance of copyright is in fact too long; I ran into this personally, when I wanted to use quotes from Edna St. Vincent Millay (whom I adore) as chapter headings in And Then Put Out The Light. The dance I had to go through was nuts, not least because the "estate" in question was the niece of a second cousin, or something, and we actually had to find her. I was perfectly willing to pay Millay's estate a royalty, that wasn't my issue, but if I'd used those quotes without permission, I'd have been in trouble. As it happens, I got lucky, because she liked the book and signed a waiver, but still. Second cousin's niece?

So I'm somewhere in the middle. But I do think you have to separate the copyright issue from the royalty issue.

Question: just how far has copyright gone? I've given up my idea of using song lyrics as titles for my book. What I'd have to go through to get permission is time better spent on research and writing.

A related thought has occurred to me, however. I'm planning on calling one chapter "The Plural of Apocalypse", with full credit to ME and Jane Espenson of course (A New Man - Season 4). Is this fair use - or do I need permission here too? Not quite so big a pain, cause ME is an ongoing concern - so no tracking concerns. The worst they can say is no. But, I hope a four word quote from a 40+ minute television script does not require permission, or royalties.

TB, honestly? I don't know. It's not something I've had to deal with, since what I wanted to use was individual lines from Millay's poems as chapter headers, and her estate, down the line, is famous for blanket refusal to use anything except the full poems (I believe Jill Balcon, Cecil Day-Lewis' widow, is equally fierce about usage of her husband's work).

That's one of those things where I'd ping the writers and ask, either what their policy on fair use is, or whether they'd waive it and let you use it.

How would you get in contact with the writers? Is there a SooperSekrit "Really, I'm not just a fan trying to bother you, I've got a legitimate question" way of access?

There are permissions specialist who, as part of their job, track down who holds what permission and where that person is. They can make top dollar, and if you've ever tried to clear something with the estate of Frida Kahlo, you understand why. (Let us say there was foot-dragging and procrastination south of the border, and it was the permissions specialist who called up and bothered them every day till they got the signed forms out the door.) When it's really bad, and nobody knows who the copyright holder is, you can go to specialist lawyers, who crawl through crap like probate research.

Copyright law, last I checked, was such that works published in 1923 are free and clear; but works published in 1924 will remains under copyright for another, what, another 15 years. (It was a blanket extension.) You know why 1924, and why the extension 5 years ago? Walt Disney.

Steamboat Willie, and thus copyright ownership (but not trademark, which I think lasts forever) on the character of Mickey Mouse, was about to age out of copyright. Realistically, it's trademark that matters, because it's all about the image/likeness, but let it not be said that a corporation would let go of something it owned. So, huge lobby in Congress, and poof! The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.

The first copyright law was 7 years from the date of publication. (And even when it's counted as life-of-author+, it's perforce "counted life-of-author or publication date, whichever is later", to avoid the very circumstance Deb describes above.) We're now up to about 100 years of copyright protection, and in 15 years, I bet Disney will be lobbying to make it 150.

Spider Robinson wrote a short story about copyright in perpetuity. I can't remember the title. In the story, the wife of a famous song writer is lobbying against the idea, which surprises people. She points out that her husband realized his most famous song was built off a lullaby he'd heard as a child, and if works were copyrighted forever, then there was a good chance that the flow of ideas would eventually be choked off.

Nutty's correct on all counts - 1924 was the big divisive year, thanks to Der Maus. The big profitable estates and corps are really big on the "mine forever! mine! MINE!" school of copyright enforcement.

And when you use the IP word - "intellectual property" - cans of worms the size of Cthulu get opened.

The permission specialists are one way to go. It's a lot easier if you have an agent or publisher for your work already; as harrowing as trying to track down the niece of the second cousin twice removed/legatee of Millay's estate was (we were on publishing deadline, and she just stayed invisible for way longer than was comfortable), it would have been far worse without the official letterhead of Pan UK to back it up.

The big profitable estates and corps are really big on the "mine forever! mine! MINE!" school of copyright enforcement.

I always wondered where WB got that aspect of Daffy Duck's character.

I always wondered where WB got that aspect of Daffy Duck's character.

Heh. I seem to remember a small TV documentary on the history of the Warner Brothers cartoons, and the literaly loonytoons who came up with my favourite cartoon critters ever, and there was a lot of deep, deep digging at the Disney boys.

That whole copyright thing - bringing this even more firmly back on topic - is a lynchpin in Kavalier and Klay, as well.