ABSTRACT
The area of reprographic reproduction rights has been greatly influenced by developments in technology. These rights were originally included in the overall category of ‘mechanical and reproduction rights’; publishers attempted to cover present and future methods of reprography in contracts with wording such as ‘to license the reproduction of the work . . . by film micrography, reprographic reproduction . . . or by means of any contrivance whether by sight or sound or a combination of both, whether now in existence or hereinafter invented’. Although many of the old technologies remain in existence, most publishers and literary agents would accept that there are now so many diverse ways of reproducing and disseminating copyright material that the old definitions are no longer adequate. The question of who should control the various rights which have developed as a result of technological advances, including those of reprography, is addressed in Chapter 2, with the proposal that verbatim electronic rights – the right to reproduce the print-on-paper product electronically – perhaps more logically lie with the publisher since they represent an alternative channel of supply for the same intellectual property, without the addition of any further value in the form of multimedia facilities.
