The Space Merchants

[damerell]

I just bought the recent Gollancz "SF Masterworks" printing of "The Space Merchants" (which is very good, and I'm glad to have a copy of my own). Inside the front cover it says;

"The rights of Frederick Pohl and C.M.Kornbluth to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988."

Since Kornbluth died thirty years before the CDPA that seems at least unlikely.

Comments

[hsw.livejournal.com]

His estate can still assert his rights, surely, and when he published it there was an implied right asserted.

H

[damerell.livejournal.com]

His estate can, sure, but that's not what it says; and I'm not sure that in the 1950s American copyright law was such that it would be necessary or useful for him to assert such a right.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

It doesn't say who asserted it - just that it has been asserted, Shirley?

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

OK, I can't read. So screw me.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Hey, I didn't say anything... although this boilerplate is very common even when, on the face of it, it's absurd.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Actually I have a better rationalisation; Pohl is entitled to speak for them both now CMK is dead, and _he_ asserts said rights on behalf of both of them.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they made some form of assertion in a form that accorded with the act when it was eventually written.