From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:59:42 +0100

German copyright law does not allow, as English and US law do, for the
type of clause that assigns future rights that have not yet been
invented.  Hence it would not have been possible for the original
contracts for those books to include electronic rights

Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
Email:  [log in to unmask]

________________________________
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:08:45 -0400

All interests are indeed aligned.  That doesn't mean the situation
will change anytime soon.  I don't know the particulars of the volume
you referenced, but for many books, in any language, the problem is
the retrospective clearing of rights.  It has a big administrative
cost. (This is also the primary reason for the orphan works problem.)
There are also different rights issues for print and electronic books.

A couple years ago I worked with a client that had set up a
French-language Web site for academic titles.  It was print only.  50%
of the sales for that site came from outside France.

Joe Esposito

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 4:24 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 21:54:16 +0200
>
> Joe, I have to count your response a worthy effort, though this title was but one example of various German books I've tried to buy over a period of time.  Suhrkamp has no objection or difficulty whatsoever in selling the print editions of these books in German over the Internet, whether through Amazon.de or buch.de or other sites, around the world to all comers, no questions asked.  I don't think German language authors very often find publishers in other countries clamoring for the rights to publish them *in German* in those countries.  So whatever restriction is being imagined here is fresh and new to e-books:  I grant you it may be the result of interpreting some clause like "all rights not expressly granted are hereby tied up in a way disadvantageous to author, publisher, booksellers, and readers for all eternity".  Probably shouldn't sign such clauses.
>
> But the real point to me is that Amazon wants to dominate the universe with innovative and successful retail.  Making this an issue and fixing it would be a good cause for international understanding.  I'm eccentric, an American who reads German for pleasure.  But there are native speakers of German living in the US and Bahrain and China who would love to get books in their language through the magic network.  But if they don't have an address and a credit card in Germany (or likely Switzerland or Austria), they're out of luck too.  And my colleagues who teach German would like to have their students improve their German would also love to be able to have them get books easily.  Germanophone governments, publishers, authors, and other cultural institutions would love to have more people around the world working on improving their German.  ALL INTERESTS ARE ALIGNED HERE.  Is the problem only that nobody's found a smart lawyer yet?
>
> Jim O'Donnell
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 8:51 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:28:36 -0400
>>
>> It makes no sense until you look at the contractual history.  I have
>> no idea what Hesse's contract says, but it likely grants rights only
>> to German in Germany.  That would have been a print contract, for
>> which there has been on "upgrading" for ebooks without a new
>> negotiation with the author's estate.
>>
>> These problems make no sense and they will not go away simply because
>> they make no sense.  They will persist for decades.
>>
>> The good news is that new books are being published with different
>> contracts, which are mostly global in orientation.  Many, many
>> exceptions to this especially for English-language and
>> Spanish-language books.
>>
>> Joe Esposito