Re: Bringing out-of-print math books into print

In article <fuq5hf$vh5$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.koskensilta@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-04-23, in sci.math.research, J.S. Milne wrote:
It seems to me that this will achieve essentially the same thing as
going through Dover or AMS but will be vastly easier.

Alas, as noted already, not all the authors are alive anymore.

Indeed, and even if the author is alive, there is still a need for a site
like the one I suggested, to demonstrate the demand. Authors are busy and
may not want to take the trouble to get their copyright back and make the
book available unless they are convinced that there is demand for it.
Conversely, if the demand is clear, then it's much more likely that someone
(author or publisher) will be motivated to undertake the (sometimes tedious)
process of getting the book back into print.

In another article, Michael Hardy suggests that the problem might solve
itself in a few years. I hope that that is true, but it can't be taken
for granted. While I believe that there is financial payoff to be had
here, it's not likely to be a huge money-maker, so it's not clear that
entrepreneurs will inevitably move into this space. Also, even if the market
for *new* books evolves to a more "on-demand" and less publisher-centric
model, the copyright issues for out-of-print books (which is what I'm
interested in here) will persist. You still won't be able to order your
personal copy of a book if the rights are languishing somewhere, preventing
anybody from making copies. Information about how many people want an
unavailable book made available will be valuable, in any publishing model.
--
Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth. ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

.

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