Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

It's quite an achievement.

I was once interested in publishing a SF anthology. Formatting and editing was nbd -- I was going to use Amazon's KDP software package for most of it, which can take a .docx and output an ebook in 5 minutes. I've done it before for non-anthology books I've published, and it couldn't be easier, though I understand why people might avoid Amazon in this day and age.

The real trouble was getting the rights to all of the different stories! Though everybody I was able to get in touch with was great -- in particular, Peter Watts, Alan Dean Foster, David Moles, and Walter Jon Williams -- many authors were totally impossible to reach! I ended up scrapping the idea after a few stories I was intent on collecting in the anthology were unobtainable. (And this after I had already paid an initial sum to many of the authors.) Finding alternates and embarking on more contract negotiations just seemed like too much work.

Anyway, I bought your anthology, will review when I'm done reading, and sincerely respect the hard work that went into it!

Thanks, you're completely correct, rights acquisition was the most difficult part!

The absolute hardest story in the anthology to get rights for was "Stars Don't Dream" by Chi Hui. It's a translation of a story that won an award in China, but Chi Hui doesn't speak English, and her contact info was extremely hard to obtain (I had to get help from the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine). We did the entire contract discussion via a combination of Google Translate and my very weak Mandarin I learned in college.

(I'm a huge Peter Watts fan, btw)

Just a thought... would it make sense to maintain a govt/central registry of copyright owners, and have an "official" means of contacting them, on which they have an SLA to respond (say 3 months) which might be part of the ground rules for maintaining rights.

From a macro societal perspective, would this evolve "copyright" into a more balanced (value generating) deal for all of society?

I have no idea how accurate this comment from last week is, or if it applies beyond games, but the model is interesting:

> Japan has a scheme for orphaned games where if you can prove you did due diligence in searching for a rightsholder and couldn't find one, you can go ahead with rereleasing the game and the royalty payments get held in escrow by the government in case the rightsholder comes forward. I wish the US had something similar for cases like these.

Source:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45877983#45878084

hearing about Japan doing things intelligently gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling.

(previous example that I remember: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/05/27/companies/j... )

At least with books, it's mostly individual authors who are most opposed to orphan works legislation. Disney isn't going to forget about whatever legal hoops are needed to maintain copyright. Individual authors (or their estates) may well do so.

The whole basis of licensing law is everything is forbidden unless you have a written license permitting it from the copyright owner.

This is contrary to most (all?) other parts of the law where everything is allowed that isn't forbidden.

So it's the right of authors to ignore email requests to discuss a re-publication if they so wish.

It is, but I think what the comment you're replying to is saying is that the world might be better if things didn't work that way.

Given experience with OSS contributors burnouts we can see how world would not be better.

Its not practical. Lots of things are copyright by default. HN comments are covered by copyright. Every photo you take is covered by copyright, so are letters contracts, kids drawings as well as professional artists,.....

What would work is an orphan works exemption, whereby if a work is not available and its not possible to trace the copyright holders you could use it.

The other problem is the term of copyright is far too long. it is ridiculous that something written during the reign of Queen Victoria could remain in copyright into the 21st century in the UK and EU. US law is slightly saner (in avoiding bringing out of copyright works back into copyright) but not much.

Oh how naive.

We have that in place for open source software. No one is contacting the authors on GitHub they just grab and use it.

Second thing is big bad guys will see if someone copyright is just a person that doesn’t have means to fight for themselves in court - you still have to sue them and still have to get initial cost of lawyers.

Last but not least there is a lot of content that you don’t want to be easily tied to the owner because history is showing us how that can be used to hunt down people having “wrong ideas”.

Can you name the works you'd collected? That's a killer lineup, I'm a huge fan of Walter Jon Willams and have enjoyed what Watts I've read.

It was intended as a sort of military SF anothology, with the word "military" also encompassing revolution, insurgency, and various other 4GW concepts. The stories spanned the period from roughly 1980-2020, with many published from 2010-2020. The list was:

> A Dry, Quiet War by Tony Daniel

> ZeroS by Peter Watts

> A Soldier of the City by David Moles

> The Beast Adjoins by Ted Kosmatka

> Lady Be Good by Jack Campbell

> Mid-Death by Alan Dean Foster

> Weaponized Math by Jonathan Brazee

> Prayers on the Wind by Walter Jon Williams

> Highwaymen by Ken MacLeod

> Second Skin by Paul McAuley

> The Dread And Fear of Kings by Richard Paul Russo

> Herbig-Haro by Harry Turtledove

> The Lost Dorsai by Gordon Dickson

> Cincinnatus by Joel Rosenberg

> The Proud Foot of the Conqueror by Reginald Bretnor

It's the stories lower on the list that were unobtainable. Dickson, Rosenberg, and Bretnor being dead (may they all rest in peace,) did not help matters.

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