Z:gnu-www-ja-copyright-and-globalization--3a9648-Publishers tend to be very bad/en

Publishers tend to be very bad at respecting their contracts with authors. For instance, book contracts typically have said that if a book goes out of print, the rights revert to the author, and publishers have generally not been very good about living up to that clause. They often have to be forced. Well, what they're starting to do now is use electronic publication as an excuse to say that it's never going out of print; so they never have to give the rights back. Their idea is, when the author has no clout, get him to sign up and from then on, he has no power; it's only the publisher that has the power.