[Coco] Fw: RAINBOW scans

[Frank Pittel]

There's been a lot of talk here about what's legal and what's not legal.
Sadly none of the people commenting are lawyers. Maybe it's time for us
to contact a lawyer and find out what the exact legalities are. My understanding
is that there was a contract between the person heading up the "rainbow on a dvd"
project that is still valid even after his death. There was also a post by the
person (sorry I don't remember the name. no slight intended) that the project is
moving forward. All the magazines have been scanned and are currently being converted
into their final form for the dvd. When the conversions are made and the disk is
"mastered" the disks will be sold and the terms of the contract made with Lonnie
will be fullfilled<sp?>.

I don't know how much longer it will be before the disks are available for sale
but it may be a good idea for everyone and their brother and sister to hold off
scanning their copies and making them available for download in clear violation
of copyrights. It may cause the current owner of the works to cancel the agreement
that's in place for the "rainbow on dvd" project!! It would also be nice if the person
managing the project would post a sentence or paragraph from time to time to let us
know how things are going.

Frank


On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 11:43:47AM -0700, Lothan wrote:
> I think a few of you misinterpreted my meaning. I am not attempting to 
> imply in any way whether the digitization effort of Rainbow back issues 
> should or should not proceed. I was merely attempting to clarify a question 
> regarding the possible intent of Lonnie's agreement.
>
> As I said, I have no qualms whatever with digitally reproducing the back 
> issues and I am not attempting to issue flame bait or to discourage this 
> effort. I will not discuss this further since some of you are a bit too 
> quick on the flame trigger. This is the primary reason I don't participate 
> here very often.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Lothan" <lothan at newsguy.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 7:31 PM
> To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] RAINBOW scans
>
>> Rainbow had "first publication" rights with some of the authors, which 
>> means Rainbow is legally allowed to publish the first copy of the article 
>> but all further rights remain with the author. The agreement with Lonnie 
>> effectively keeps Lonnie in control of the digital copies so he continues 
>> to have "first publication" rights. I'm definitely not a copyright lawyer, 
>> but I don't think these "first publication" rights can be transferred 
>> since Lonnie has no authority over these rights. So, yes I believe you are 
>> mostly correct when you say Lonnie could be held liable if he allowed 
>> anyone to access digital copies of the magazine and anyone providing 
>> access to digital copies can also be held liable.
>>
>> I don't know if anyone would dispute copyright given Rainbow hasn't been 
>> published for so long. I certainly don't have any qualms with any of the 
>> articles I wrote, but all of my rights are assigned to Rainbow anyway so I 
>> have no legal bearing in the matter. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether 
>> the death of Lonnie has any impact on the digitization and distribution 
>> agreement so I won't say anything regarding this  lest I stick my foot 
>> firmly in my mouth.
>>
>>
>
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