In another life, in another time, I earned my living in content creation and distribution. So my learnt instinct is to sympathise with authors and publishers in the matter of copyright. Moreover, some of the internet hoo-haa is hobbled by complete misunderstanding, if not actual ignorance, of copyright law.

In particular, Lawrence and Wishart are not, pace certain critics, “claiming” or “extending” copyright over the translations in question. In the UK, to quote Wikipedia 

“The 1911 Act provides that an individual's work is automatically under copyright, by operation of law, as soon as it leaves his mind and is embodied in some physical form: be it a novel, a painting, a musical work written in manuscript, or an architectural schematic. This remains the legal position under the Schedules of 1956 Act and of the 1988 Act.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom)

It is thus evident that all the translations in question are in copyright and in some cases may continue to be so into the next century, since copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years. (Who owns the copyright is another matter.)

However, Lawrence and Wishart have lost my sympathy in this case by their disingenuous argumentation and special pleading.

(1) L+W are seeking to *withdraw* from an agreement with MIA that the latter could make  available vol.s 1 to 10 of the MECW.

(2) What is L+W's motive for this? They don't directly say so, but it seems clearly linked to the library distribution deal they are trying to set up.

My guess is that a condition of the projected deal is that they renege on their agreement with MIA so as to create an exclusive licence for their unnamed counterparty, but I look forward to being corrected about this.

(3) The L+W statement (http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/collected_works_statement.html) claims “This will have the effect of maintaining a public presence of the Works, in the public sphere of the academic library, paid for by public funds. This is a model of commons”.

This avoids the tiresome detail that L+W are seeking to *restrict* a genuinely public presence that already exists and substitute one that is only “public” for those who have access to the libraries in question — that is, not workers, not pensioners, not independent scholars. 

It is NOT a “model of commons” as I understand the term.

(4) The same statement moans that they are being asked to “surrender copyright”. 

No, they are not. They are being asked to continue the licence that they voluntarily extended to MIA nine years ago (MIA statement at https://www.marxists.org/admin/legal/lw-response.html).

(5) As MIA point out in their statement: “L&W’s statement suggests that allowing the MIA to continue to put up volumes 1 through 10 of the 50 volumes would significantly impact L&W’s finances in a negative manner. It’s unclear if this was already the case as far back as nine years ago when L&W granted us permission to put online these works in the first place or this is a new revelation.”

My suggestion is that this is indeed a new revelation, and one imparted to L+W by whoever it is that they are negotiating with — presumably a “large publishing [or] other media conglomerate and aggregator”, to adapt a phrase from their statement.

(6) L+W justify their stance by appealing to their need for revenue to support their other radical publishing activities. That is certainly a fair argument, but they venture on dangerous ground in advancing it, since it invites scrutiny of the usefulness of those activities.

In particular, we might note from their web-site that one of their current titles (top row, second from left at  http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/books.html) is “Railpolitik: Bringing railways back to the community”, by Paul Salveson.

This Salveson is described as having “established the Association of Community Rail Partnerships in the mid-1990s, before going on to a senior management post with Northern Rail in 2005” (Northern Rail is owned by Serco-Abellio, a joint venture between the Netherlands state railway company and a private outsourcing multinational). Salveson was “awarded an MBE for ‘services to the railway industry’ in 2008.” .

The book itself is described as “[a]rguing against the return to a centralised ‘British Rail’” and instead suggesting “a new model which goes with the flow of current plans to devolve rail responsibilities within the English regions”. 

No doubt this is an interesting contribution to debate, but there's nothing obviously radical about it, and nor is there any sign that it is informed by Marxist ideas.

Admittedly, I have picked out an example that I find particularly annoying (actually, it leapt out at me, but I'm a railway enthusiast). And the works on offer on the same web-page include Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, which are certainly a worthwhile use of resources.

But the point is that, as L+W themselves draw attention to, they are “a direct legatee of the Communist/Eurocommunist tradition in the UK, having been at one time the publishing house of the Communist Party of Great Britain.”

The MIA, on the other hand, covers authors from Martin Abern (who he? A US trotskyist, it turns out) to Emile Zola, via many usual and unusual suspects, including Enver Hoxha, and languages from Shqip (Albanian) to isiZulu.

It's not obvious to me why the legacy of Marx and Engels should be exploited for the exclusive benefit of one current in the working class movement.

Finally, Alan Freeman makes the sensible suggestion that “the archive could run – in association with L&W – an online version of the text which is accessible at a range of rates (low-income, library income, standard rate etc)”.

I don’t know if MIA would be amenable to this, or have the infrastructure in place to make it happen, but in any case it can’t happen without L+W’s participation.

As the copyright owners, perhaps L+W would like to take the initiative on this? 

Julian Wells

p.s. There's a small but important slip in Alan's statement of the copyright term ("how many authors survive 70 years after they've been published?"). 

As I note above, it is author's lifetime PLUS 70 years — and from the act of creation, not publication (so my copyright in this message came into being when I typed it on my computer, not when I sent it to the list).

In my view any extension of copyright beyond the author's natural life converts copyright into capital.