Can I reproduce out of print books?

[Tim May]

At 6:55 AM -0800 3/11/01, A. Melon wrote:
>Does anyone know the law regarding duplication of out of print
>books/other works?

"Copyright" is separate from "out of print."

A book is "out of print" when the publisher is not selling new copies 
of the book to distributors and end buyers. At that time. A book can 
be "out of print" and then a Second or Third Printing, etc., can 
happen.

"Out of print," even for N years, does not mean copyright is 
relinquished or lost.

(I said "selling" above, as opposed to "printing," because a 
particular book is only being actually "printed" for some number of 
hours while a print run is actually occurring. This is clearly not 
what is meant by "in print.")

>
>E.g. Stephen King withdrew his book 'Rage' (support your neighborhood
>second-hand bookstore) about a schoolkid who holds his class hostage
>at gunpoint, shortly after the Littleton shootings.  King _does not_
>want this book to be available to the public until the mess blows over.
>
>If I distributed this book in electronic format for free, I would not
>be costing him a single penny.  Would I still be violating the DCMA
>and which other laws would I violate?

Copyright laws. The issue of whether you think you would or would not 
be "costing him a single penny" is irrelevant to copyright law. (As 
it should be...I'm reading David Friedman's new book, "Law's Order," 
which helps to clarify much thinking.)

(David Friedman came to yesterday's Cypherpunks meeting at the Alpine 
Inn, near Stanford. He arrived late, but we managed to have dinner 
and a vigorous discussion afterward. He kindly gave me a copy of 
"Law's Order." A very nice book, from what I have read of it so far.)

>
>Also, what if I claimed that books like King's were in some way
>responsible for the current spate of shootings?  Would I be able to
>reproduce the book (so my quotes can be judged in the context of a whole
>work) in order to campaign against it?  Or can he legally suppress his
>own works?

There have been unfortunate court cases where some perp and his 
shysters attempted to claim that a film (like "Natural Born Killers") 
or a recording "caused" some criminal action. Until recently, juries 
did not buy this argument. There are good reasons for society to not 
let people off the hook because they claim that the Bible made them 
kill someone, or because a movie about airline hijacking gave them 
ideas.

As for quoting from a book or article in a trial, of course you may. 
You may introduce the book or article as evidence, quote selective 
sections, etc. Even reviewers may do this ("fair use").

This has nothing to do with you deciding to "reproduce" the book and 
distribute it to a wider audience.

(There are some niggling issues about whether coprighted works can be 
entered in toto into court records which are then publically 
accessible, especially over the Net. The Church of Scientology case, 
involving their copyrights "NOTS" documents, are a case in point. The 
Church has convinced some (most? all?) courts not to have the full 
text of these copyrighted works not accessible over the Web.)

Generally, your notion that you have some property right to someone else
's works because you think he is either "holding it back" or that 
your publication would "not cost him one penny" is strongly 
contradicted by Copyright law.


--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns