Ironically, the last time I ran into this issue personally was discussing with David Friedman (son of Milt) access to several of his referenced papers. One (of which he was the author) had been published in a collection by (the now deceased) Julian Simon. Friedman wrote:
"The optimum population piece was published in one of Julian Simon's books, and he, unfortunately, is no longer alive, so I don't know how I would get permission to web it."
This suggests a few things to me (a lack of clarity on the part of an author over rights to his own works, a surprising lack of knowledge of copyright or rights management, generally, etc.). But it's a quite tangible instance of an author of a work stymied by the question of copyright status due to the death of a publisher / editor.
I'm not buying that - he knows perfectly well how to contact the publisher or find out who's administering Simon's literary estate (most likely his wife), and the DMCA means he could put it up on his website and wait to see if anyone lodged any objection to his doing so (which they almost certainly won't).
> the DMCA means he could put it up on his website and wait to see if anyone lodged any objection to his doing so (which they almost certainly won't).
Wrong. The DMCA provides safe harbor for online service providers. It provides no safe harbor for those who personally reproduce a copyrighted work, on an online service or otherwise. Rather, it increases the penalties if such reproduction is infringing. And I don't see how David Friedman is under any obligation to take such a risk or research the status of a work to which he owns no rights, did not author, and does not benefit from.
Ok, I misread the post to read that Milton was the author, but apparently he was not relevant. Still, unless David had reserved rights to the piece it doesn't really change his position much. The DMCA has no application and this distortion of its so-called "safe harbor" provision needs to die.
"The optimum population piece was published in one of Julian Simon's books, and he, unfortunately, is no longer alive, so I don't know how I would get permission to web it."
https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/fsYycWa8...
This suggests a few things to me (a lack of clarity on the part of an author over rights to his own works, a surprising lack of knowledge of copyright or rights management, generally, etc.). But it's a quite tangible instance of an author of a work stymied by the question of copyright status due to the death of a publisher / editor.