Harper Lee sues for copyright of To Kill a Mockingbird

It isn't even supposed to be about protecting that 'right'. It was supposed to be an incentive to create for the public's benefit with the limited time monopoly being simply the means to do so.

I have an older post about it here: http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/16427595132/

I agree. I really dislike the fact that copyrights can be "transferred" to another person or entity. The music labels especially have been abusing this the most, and are basically coercing any many artists into giving them the full rights of their music, and then become their employees. The labels should be partners in promoting a song or an album, and nothing more. They shouldn't be entitled to the artists work, and then expect royalties for a century from it, while keeping extending the copyrigh term to infinity.

> The very fact that it can be transferred like property, even "accidentally," means it is essentially meaningless.

In what respect? If I create a work and someone would like to buy the rights from me, why shouldn't I be allowed to sell the rights?

"I'm no fan of copyright and this is why"

So without copyright anyone can print To Kill a Mockingbird without paying royalties to Harper Lee. How would that be a better system. Should she make her money charging admission to public readings of her work, as is proposed for musicians (making income from giving concerts rather than selling recordings) in a copyrightless world?

It may be true that you're not a fan of copyright, but I'm not sure you know enough about copyright to have a properly informed opinion about an aspect like this.

For what it's worth, the transferability of copyrights was established in the 19th century to enable to creation and publication of encyclopedias. By allowing writers to transfer their copyrights to publishers, publishers could (a) aggregate a number of entries into a new type of work and (b) produce new editions of that work without having to submit to extortionate negotiating situations with writers who could use their control of one (possibly unchanged) part of the work to block development of the rest.

This principle underlies the genesis of the extensively collaborative forms of expression that defined culture in the 20th century, from recorded symphonies, to radio plays, televised broadcasts, and or course, the cinema. Indeed, it creates an entirely new class of authors (e.g. cinematographers and film editors) whose own work depends on massively collaborative forms of creation.

There are many, many reasons to be critical of the copyright system. But the basic transferability of copyrights isn't one of them.

If an author has a right to his or her own work, how does the author not have the right to transfer the legal benefits thereof in exchange for consideration?

It's easy to understand why you have that reaction when you realize that Lee is Boo Radley.

seconded, and ashamed... :(

Mine was "He's a she?"

I knew Harper Lee was alive from listening to the excellent audiobook On Writing, authored and narrated by Stephen King. He stated his astonishment that To Kill a Mockingbird was the only novel she ever wrote, but in a manner that never conveyed her gender (that I recall, anyway).

I even read the book years before without realizing that the author was a woman. It's the only assigned reading I have ever had that I couldn't put down.

Harper Lee is a very private person, almost never gives interviews and hasn't written any other books, so yeah very understandable reaction. I really love to kill a mockingbird, still remember being assigned to read it in 7th grade. The teacher actually started by reading the first part of the book to us in class and i was hooked, went home and actually read ahead(quite a big deal for a bored 7th grader that barely did enough to get by when he had his IRC friends waiting). I think thats a huge reason for me being an avid reader today.

I really hope this Pinkus guy gets what he deserves. People that take advantage of the elderly are right near child molesters on the scumbag scale, and forcing some one that obviously values their privacy to have to make a public spectacle of themselves like this should be a crime in its own right.

Probably because the book was set in 1930's.

I never quite liked the lynch mob scene. I don't completely disagree that a mob can be talked down that way, but it seemed too sudden. Then, a couple of years ago, I saw a study published about men and women and aggression. Individually, men acted more aggressively than women (in some competitive game they made up). But in an faceless mob, the women were twice as aggressive as the men. As soon as the women were singled out again, they went back to "normal." This made that scene more intelligible, since to Harper Lee, being called out of a mob by name would have the effect shown in the book.