Publishers & Copyright

With respect to rights, publishers have a dual role. As copyright users or licensees, they are entitled through agreements with authors and other publishers to use copyright protected works; as copyright owners or licensors, they grant a right to other publishers or users to copy, translate, adapt or otherwise use copyright protected works.

 

As users of copyrighted works, they have an interest in ensuring that copyright protection retains certain limitations, and that the limited duration of copyright ensures that creative works can enter the public domain. This way, publishers can just like other creators build their creative efforts on existing ones.

 

As owners of copyright, publishers have an interest in enforcing their property and commercial rights, and to prevent any activity putting at risk their commercial calculations. For this reason, they fight any unauthorised copying ("piracy"). From a publisher perspective it makes no difference whether a book is stolen or a work is copied unlawfully. This is why publishers engage in anti-piracy activities