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Re: article on Civil War Diary



At 02:24 PM 12/20/00 -0600, Pope, Barbara wrote:
I don't see any problem with copyright law. The article says that Simon and
Schuster bought the rights to it from the grandson of Sneden's sister.

No, the article says that "the society purchased them all" (the diaries in
the possession of the grandson and the drawings initially offered to them)
for $200,000.  It does not say whether this was just for the physical
items, or if it also included the copyrights in the piece.  Given the
amount of money involved, however, it would be pretty dumb of the VHS not
to make sure that they were getting copyrights as well as physical
possession.

It is pretty clear from the article that the person who sold them the
watercolors did not own the copyrights.  The article states that "the
owner's family had received them from a member of the Sneden family member
in partial payment of a debt."  Such a transaction is unlikely to have also
conveyed copyright.

Who would own the copyright?  Sneden's heirs.  It could be, I suppose, that
the grandson in the piece is the only living direct heir and as part of the
transaction transferred all his copyrights (in writing) to the VHS.  It
might be fun, though, for an amateur genealogist to get Sneden's probate
and then track down whether there are any other family members who have
inherited a share of his literary estate.  Someone out there might be able
to claim a good portion of the $335,000 that the Virginia Historical
Society realized by the sale of the book!

Peter Hirtle

PS:  It is interesting to note that if the VHS had chosen to wait until 1
Jan. 2003 to publish the diaries, they would have entered the public domain
and could be freely used, quoted, excerpted, etc.  By publishing now, the
VHS has extended the copyright on that portion they have published until 1
January 2048.  It is also interesting to note that the Sneden collection is
a commercial site (www.sneden.com), and not part of the VHS site.  I guess
there is money in archives...

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