August 19, 2012

More Predation in the "Creative Community"

Some big publishers are offering contracts which transfer the author's rights over all their creative output, present and future, to the publisher; in some cases, the clause is buried in the boilerplate (HT: Sarah Hoyt).

The link emphasizes that publishers have moved beyond wanting an option on future work to demanding control of future work.

In principle I support the Constitutional enactment of intellectual property to support science and the useful arts. In practice IP is devolving, if it hasn't already devolved, into something that does more harm than good.

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