need a private publisher for my book

[CTyankee]

I have published one book privately with Book Baby. The understanding was it was for private distribution to friends a family only and not for sale. Now BB is refusing my second book saying it must have copywrite permission. I am willing to have notification in the front of the book that it is not for sale and for private distribution only.

I ordered 100 copies. Last time I ordered 50 and it wasn't enough. 100 copies is certainly not enough for me to peddle it for profit!

Since the book is about art, it must have the art in it.

Is there a new regulation in place that I don't know about?

[msongs]

1. copyright has nothing to do with if the book is for public or private. anything you create has

an automatic copyright. the value of getting it copyrighted thru the us copyright office is that any copyright legal issues can be handled in federal court. the publisher is just trying to protect itself in case you are sued for violation (my opinion, not legal advice)

[CTyankee]

2. I am willing to do this. And to state it is for private use only.

The only thing I can think of is that the copyright laws have changed.

[Effete Snob]

3. You are paying them to copy the art and sell it to you

Book Baby is not your friends and family. They are a business that is going to sell you a book they printed. In order to print that book and sell it to you, they need permission of all the copyright owners pertaining to the contents of the book.

YOU might not be selling it, but they certainly are selling it to you.

Aside from which, copyright law does not care if you are selling it or not. Copyright law is about the right to make copies, period, which is what you are asking them to do.

The kind of "personal use" exemption that grew up around people making their own backups of things, or time-shifted viewing of broadcasts, does not extend to you and 99 clones of you.

If you copy material which is subject to copyright, and give that copy to someone else, you are certainly violating the copyright. All that music filesharing that went on in the early 2000's was free too, and was just people sharing their own copies. It does not matter.

Now, you *might* have a fair use argument if you nail all the factors for that, such as only copying as much as needed for comment, criticism, etc., but the publisher is not going to sign on to your legal defense for you since they are the ones doing the copying.

But giving away free copies of something doesn't excuse copying material which is subject to copyright. Never has.

[CTyankee]

6. Book Baby did my first book which was the same format and type of content.

So what I glean from this experience is that it doesn't matter even if I take my own photograph of the artwork (which is limited I have learned and why I never even attempted to take a picture of an art work that I was viewing in person (and some museums won't let you).

Actually, my first book was a compilation of essays I originally had published here at DU, along with the photos I had used which I got off the Internet.

Anyway I am pulling the copy and keeping it until I can ascertain what I can/cannot do with what I have written.

[Effete Snob]

9. Was all of the art in existence prior to 1923?

[CTyankee]

10. no. Some of the later works were in the 50s and 60s.

[relayerbob]

4. Unless it is your personal art ...

It violates copyright law. Nothing new. It is illegal and unethical. Period. Similarly, it is not legal, nor ethical, to steal someone’s music and give it to your friends, for profit or not. The fact they didn’t catch it the first time is irrelevant. Saying it’s for private us is also irrelevant.

Intellectual property is that person’s product, and using anyone else’s art, software, words, poems, designs, or anything else, of any kind, for your personal distribution, without the owner’s explicit written permission, is illegal, and is no better than stealing someone’s car, even if you are not planning to strip it for parts.

If it is YOUR art, then all you need to do is provide evidence of your copyrights to it. QED

[CTyankee]

5. Not that it matters, but my book shows the art and discussses the artist's ideas, motivation, etc.

It is basically a retelling of the story behind the art which is available on the Internet and discusses what art critics have or had to say about it in their books, which I cite. I do offer my own opinion. It's not too different from a paper one might do for a class in art history.

[relayerbob]

7. That someone has posted art on the internet is also not relevant

By doing so, they are violating copyright. If you want to do such a book, you would need to get written permission from the current owners of the copyrights for the work, or prove that the art is in the public domain.

Your opinions in the book are your intellectual property, to which you hold all rights. Use of art in a college environment can be construed as Fair Use, but only in the academic sense, and even there, there are strict limits about what you can and can't do. In many/most cases, reputable schools have negotiated exemptions or pay general use royalties to allow people to use material from, say, their library.

I'm sure your project is well done and was created in good faith, but in the end, it's just not allowed, and never has been. In books I have written, when using anything more than a very short quote, I've asked for and obtained the permission in writing (yes, emails are valid) to actually show their work, or quote their words.

Sorry if I seem a little pedantic on it, but as an author, patent holder, IP rights are very important to me, and while I know you weren't planning anything commercial through your work, it's still their property, regardless of who else is abusing that out on the Internet.

[CTyankee]

8. This would be typical of what I write:

Last edited Wed Mar 1, 2023, 05:43 PM - Edit history (1)

"Again, Artemisia shows serious daring, and the guts to see her mission carried through to the end. It is both a stunning exercise in chiarascuro and the full-on application of the Italian Baroque taste for violence."

This was from my first book that Book Baby published. I was writing about this artist's works after a trip to see it in person.

What I take from your post is that the church where I saw the work would have to give permission to show it, even if I took the photo myself. Or find the name of the photographer and get his/her permission.

[relayerbob]

11. It's complex

It would depend on whether the art is actually public domain or is owned by the estate of the artists, or someone else. And then, the Church may need to give permission, also. The fact that they are displaying the art, doesn't mean they own the copyright to it. Most likely they wouldn't. Similar to how my owning a CD doesn't give me any rights under copyright law, expect to make personal copies for myself only for archival purposes. I'm sure the book publisher knows that these things are complex and convoluted and the research alone would likely cost them more than they could ever hope to make off of your sale ... not counting any potential litigation. They can't take your word for it, because as someone else noted, they are the ones selling you the book, so they would be on the hook for it.

In any case, you might be better off incorporating it into a really good Word or PDF document and sending it out. While still not actually legal, since no money is changing hands, the worst you would likely get is a case-and-desist, assuming someone learned about it and cared enough to bother with doing that, which would be unlikely.

[CTyankee]

12. I thought about having BB make just one copy and then I could pass it around at family events.

But they are telling me that they can't even do the proper pixel level, which is odd given that they did my first book with perfect pixel levels. I'm going to re-check that.

So I am preserving the manuscript in its raw form, with art photos, and will share one on one with family or have someone xerox a few copies at a copy center. At some point, someone might discover it and do something with it.

[CTyankee]

13. Going back to the argument "no better than stealing someone's car."

I have to smile at that. Not the "legal" argument. Let's say you write a song. I hear it and love it and want to sing it. What gives me the right to "reify" your beauty and sing it in the shower? But then I want to sing it to my friends when we are all at the beach together. Still OK? Well, I want to reify beauty by giving it to someone else so they will see it and love it (I hope).

This goes to what we rightly call "aesthetics." Of course, you wrote the song, no question. I cannot sing your song without "paying for the right to sing it," according to copyright law. Your argument seems to rest on the idea that it cannot be given away to another for their enjoyment. How many times is art sent from one person to another on their phones? Does anybody have the right to the song, hear it and send it from their phone to another's?

Note my little tag line at the bottom of my posts here at DU.

[relayerbob]

14. Actually, no, not correct

But no one is stupid enough to sue over you singing it to your friends. You *copy* that song and send it to your friends- that is illegal. If you are in a band and you sing to your 10,000 friends in a stadium, best have your licenses paid up.

The fact that people “share” art over the phone doesn’t make it right, and I know hundreds of musicians who have had their preferred livelihood stripped away from them, because people don’t buy their art for a buck, but would rather share it over the phone.

A better analogy - you build a beautiful bench for your front porch. Some stranger driving by likes it so much, he chooses to liberate it from your porch and take it to his house for people to enjoy, because it’s such a wonderful thing. Is that right? No, it’s called stealing, and is exactly the same thing.

Now, Picasso may have been ok with giving stuff away, but I doubt it, since he became a multimillionaire, so comparing selling as many paintings as possible (50,000) is not the same as making one, and having it copied and given away to 50,000 people. He was more than happy to let everyone share his art, as long as they purchased it from him.

Art is an artists lifeblood, if you like it or the person, why would you feel it’s ok to deprive them of that? As I said, both and *ethically* wrong.

[CTyankee]

15. Stolen art is one of my favorite subjects. People who want to steal it usually do so thinking

erroneously that they can sell it. Finding they can't, they leave in a locker at the airport and hope it's found w/o involving them. The art theft from the Isabella Gardner Museum is an interesting case. I don't think they've ever found the Rembrandt (his only painting of a nautical scene). How did you know about this theft? So the newspaper has the right to cover it as news and show the painting but I don't have a right to write about it (for free) w/o permission? But our copyright law says I can "comment."

As to your argument about the bench:I suppose this gets into the whole question of what art is. Andy Warhol finally gives us some answer: you encounter Campbell's soup in your supermarket shelves. You encounter Warhol's Campbell soup can in an art museum. My beautiful porch bench has utility outside of its pleasing design. It has been designed for that purpose and will never have any purpose beyond sitting in it or putting stuff on it.

[relayerbob]

16. You are intentionally bypassing the point

THESE PRODUCTS ARE OWNED BY THE MAKERS. The fact you have the tech to easily copy them doesn't change a SINGLE thing.

Period.

If you can sell your bench/art/play/song/photograph to a museum or a theater, THEN IT IS YOURS TO DO SO. It is NOT someone else's right to steal the same bench and put it in a park, just because it was sitting out front, unguarded and someone ELSE thinks they have a right to do take it. Utilitarian aspects are completely and totally irrelevant. Products have trademarks, copyrights and patents to protect them from people who want to abuse the makers' creativity.

There is no argument here. The law is the law and has been that way for a long time. The ethical question is similarly unambiguous. Your choice to violate someone you admire is sad, and a clear reflection of the mindset that has taken over too much of our country/society/world.

[CTyankee]

17. Thank you for your comments.

[CTyankee]

18. Since you have "mentioned" this, I will call your attention to this:

https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html/

Now this is the business of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. D.C. Please read the article, altho it does deal with what I think was your complaint. It seems to me that the gallery wishes to see art proliferate, as I have stated in my remarks, in order to make it MORE accessible (which is my goal) to people who have not yet had an opportunity to know and enjoy art. It is not an ignoble effort.

Our own National Gallery of Art feels as I do. I invite you to take it up with them and tell them, as you have told me, that no, they are wrong.

[relayerbob]

19. Don't equate yourself with the National Gallery of Art

Seriously, your comments have become increasingly absurd as you are trying to justify why *you* should have some special privilege to take it upon yourself to "share" other people's work.

Done now.

[CTyankee]

20. Moi aussi.