Dispute With Government Could Leave Indie Publisher With Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars In Fines
At the moment, anyone interested in publishing a new copyrightable book in the US, is required by federal law to send at least 2 free and complete copies of the best edition of that published work to the copyright office.
This brings us to the story of James Jenkins and his husband Ryan, they've been running an independent on-demand publishing business right out of their own home in Virginia.
Jenkins is running an operation, known as Valancourt Books, that requires him to maintain very low overhead so that he can turn any sort of profit and be able to continue doing business.
Valancourt Books works on a print-on-demand basis, they don't print anything until an order is placed. His business only has 2 employees, him and his husband, and they specialize in reprinting lost works of art and then bringing them to a new modern audience. Their collection right now currently has at least 400 books in print (see some below).
They're now in a dispute with the federal government however, after the US copyright office sent them notification recently, demanding that they comply with the rule to send one copy of at least 240 different books that they have in their collection.
If they don't comply with that regulation they could be seeing thousands of dollars in fines over the matter which could essentially bankrupt their business success and bring their unique operation to a halt.
“Sending hundreds of our books to the government will cost us thousands of dollars and many hours of time, which cuts into our already limited resources for our mission to rescue rare and important literature,... But if we don’t send the books, the Copyright Office says they will fine us out of existence.” - according to Jenkins
They've now filed a lawsuit in response and they are hoping that they will win the fight by arguing that this stipulation being imposed on them violates their free speech and their right to just compensation for any property that's taken by the state.
If Jenkins and his partner wanted to comply, that would mean that they would have to order, print, pack, and ship etc, each book individually; sending hundreds of books to the government for free. That could easily cost thousands of dollars to complete and would greatly hinder their business success.
Pics:
Pixabay
pic 2 Valancourt Books
I'm sick and tired of the corrupt swamp.
You have a good political concept and you can analyze political issues from a different perspective which is really charming to me.
I'd be taking the Marc Stevens approach if this was me. What proof is there that those laws apply to them?
http://marcstevens.net
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So is there a warehouse somewhere with thousands of books being held and catelogued by the Copyright Office? What do they do with all the books they receive? I can’t imagine that anyone actually reads them or consults them during a dispute.
Maybe through this lawsuit they’ll begin accepting digital copies and certified photographs. That would make compliance more affordable for small publishers.
In this case it does not seem wrong for the government to fine those who do not comply with the rules, in the end what they are doing is trying to protect the author's rights
Thank you very much for sharing this news
I wish you a good weekend dear friend @ doitvoluntarily
Trying to protect the author's rights? HAH! So you think the government will protect the rights of authors who are whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing/corruption?
Anything that is critical of government will get flagged and tied up in red tape. Government is trying to protect government, they aren't trying to protect authors rights and if you actually were an author you'd realize that. Try to publish something critical of government (fully referenced of course) with these laws and see just how much they respect your rights as an author.
Once again, government doing a fine of looting simple people with mediocre earnings. Makes you wonder whatever happened to the whole - 'by the people, for the people' thing.
Its not only a matter of taxes required of publishers ........ the whole tax system is rigged to extract value from the earning man.
“reprinting lost works of art”
How lost? So old that they’re now in the public domain? If I write A Guide to 12th Century Byzantine Wheat Harvest in Eastern Thrace and put it up on Amazon as a CreateSpace publish on demand book, if it sells one copy would Amazon print out two more copies and send them to a federal depository?
That's one of the best things that any good government has to do so as to protect people's intelligent works done literally. So, it is a good idea from the government. If you truly write something without copying and pasting, nothing will stop you from submitting copies of it to government for access.
What's to stop the government refusing to publish any literature that may be critical of government? Nothing. But keep cheering while your liberties are stripped from you by your "good government".
The problem is that copyright is not to protect me or you. It is to protect the big corporations.
Every time Mikey Moose is about to fall out of copyright, they change the laws so that the protection is longer. So, basically, they are destroying the "fair use" side of copyright.
There can be an argument for government backed intellectual property rights. I do not agree with them, but they are there. However, there is no argument for what The US is doing with copyrights.
The TPP was ALL about copyright enforcement. And if it was agreed to, it becomes supreme law of the land. Underhanded extreme law passing.
Status quo = Power, profit, and control.
Good = Respecting and protecting innocent life.
Evil = Hurting, oppressing, or killing for fun or for profit.
You could argue that this law may protect some intellectual works from being completely ripped off, but there were already mechanisms in place to prevent stuff like that (or do you really think that until now literature was rife with copyright abuse that needs to be reigned in?). This law will actively prevent lots of new works through bureaucratic red tape. And for all those cheering at our liberties being stripped away, tell me, if you have to submit your entire manuscript to the government before publishing, what's to prevent the government refusing to publish any literature that may be critical of government? If you people think that the government will protect peoples freedom of speech or their human rights then I've got a nice beach front property on the surface of the sun you might be interested in.
America has a STATUE OF LIBERTY yet most Americans (and Australians, and people in general) cheer when their liberties are destroyed by government. The dictionary definition of liberty is: "freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control" and "freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice". These laws don't respect and protect liberty, they actively piss all over it and you dipshits have your heads raised to the sky with your mouths open drinking all this 'good' golden rain.
The problem is that they are guilty. Like all of us. It was just their turn to be prosecuted.
They showed up on someone's radar, not because they were caught breaking the law, but someone was upset with a book they published. And thus, see the person, find the crime.
I suggest drag out court case.
Sell dispose of all assets.
File bankruptcy.
Reopen business at neighbors house with a dot co, or dot info website