ERB自筆集 Essey that ERB wrote original version


Protecting the Author's Rights


When I started writing, a little more than twenty years ago, my literary experience had not progressed much beyond the harness section of Sears-Roebuck's catalogue; and I did not know the name of the editor of that. I doubt that I knew the name of any editor, and I certainly was not acquainted with one personally; to the best of my knowledge I did not even know a single writer. I thought authors were long-haired nuts with Windsor ties and halitosis, and editors grouchy old gentlemen with fuzzy white beards and spectacles. That was before I had met such men as Don Kennicott, Edwin Balmer, Ray Long, and Bob Davis.

As to writers, I do not know much about them even yet; but judging by the lengths some of them go to obtain publicity I feel that I was not far wrong in my original estimate of their mentality, and a lot of them look as though they had halitosis.

But what I knew about writers and editors was encyclopedic compared with what I knew about any phase of the profession of literature. Doubtless there are reviewers who will opine that I have not greatly increased my knowledge in the ensuing twenty years -- but it is not of the technic of writing that we are concerned at the moment; it is with a certain aspect of the practical rather than the artistic side of writing that I wish to deal.

Among the innumerable things of which I was ignorant were the various rights inherent in literary productions. Vaguely, in a hazy, muddy sort of way, I realized that magazines and books were different; and so, when I sent out my first manuscript, I insisted upon retaining the book rights. Not knowing about any of the other rights, I generously passed them all over to the magazine. Of course there may be some question as to the degree of my generosity inasmuch as I did not know that I was passing over anything and since, at the time, they were quite valueless.

I had sold a number of stories before I awoke to the fact that I had been parting with something that might, some day be valuable; and thereafter I offered fix serial rights only, a description which has since talk the form of first American and Canadian magazine rights only. This latter is one which I advise all writer to adopt, since it precludes the possibility of later missunderstandings in relation to second magazine righi and definitely retains for the writer his newspaper rights.

In connection with the rights which I gave away there later occurred one of those things which could have happened in a few lines of business and which constitute, with numerous other pleasant incidents, the basis of my belief that writing is as altogether as satisfactory a means of livelihood as one may find. Long after these rights became valuable the magazines that had acquired them through my ignorance reassigned them to me without question and without payment; and in addition to this every magazine that has ever copyrighted one of my stories in its name has given me a proper legal assignment of such copyright.

Of late years I have been fortunate in having been able to arrange for the copyrighting of magazine stories in my own name or that of my corporation; but to those who are unable to make such an arrangement with the magazines for which they write, I suggest that they insist that immediately upon the completion of the copyright by the magazine it be legally assigned to them.

I have found that there is no better aid in the protection of an author's rights in his work than the recordation of the copyright in his own name or, as in my case, the name of a corporation which he controls. This is especially true in the protection of motion picture rights and the marketing of them, as producers insist, for their own protection, upon determining the ownership of the copyright, and often employ attorneys to consult the records at Washington before they will enter into a contract for the motion picture rights in a story.

Furthermore, there are some unscrupulous producers or agents who are constantly checking copyright ownership at Washington in the hope of buying up copyrights in valuable material the copyright to which does not stand in the name of the author.

But owning the copyright does not necessarily give you all the rights in your work if you have been careless in the transferring of rights and licenses to others. I have already mentioned the necessity of thinking of your newspaper and second magazine rights when you despose of your first magazine rights. Twenty years ago I thought I was getting all there was out of it when sold all the serial rights in a story for a quarter of a cent a word, but since then I have sold second magazine rights in those same stories for many times what all the former rights brought me then.

I have never taken my work very seriously and I am afraid that I never shall, but I take the business end of it quite seriously. It was only inexperience that drew me into my first errors. Of course I have made a lot since, but I endeavor not to make the same one twice. however, I am still constituted much as I was twenty years ago, when the idea of actual cash dramatic rights existing in "Tarzan of the Apes" would have given me nothing more serious than a laugh. Yet only a few years after it was published I entered into a contract for its production in England, where it ran with greater or less (mostly less) success in the provinces for some time. It was not a hit, but it might have been, and it may some day lie. What you are writing today may be a hit some time. It has certain potential values which you should protect.

Equally remote were the possibilities of profiting from foreign and translation rights. A kindly providence who looks after infants, inebriates, and young authors, preserved my foreign and translation rights to me. Afterward, my foreign royalties were, at one time, greater than my United States royalties. It paid me well to own them. Therefore, never underrate the value of any of your rights; laugh at them, if you will; but hang on to them.

Since those simple days of twenty years ago, when I blithely gave away a fortune in rights that I did not know existed, many changes have taken place, bringing new rights with them. Today I am closing a radio contract covering the dramatic presentation of my stories over the air. What a far cry from second magazine rights. Within a year I have seen a television clause inserted in one of my motion picture contracts; and today I am watching my television rights with as great solicitude as I watch any of the others, for long before my copyrights expire television rights will be worth a fortune. Possibly not mine, but some one's -- perhaps yours. I am going to hang onto mine, however; and at least I can get a smile out of them now, if I never get anything else.

Perhaps in my radio contract I shall insist upon the reservation to me of the interplanetary rights. Why not? Radio rights and sound and dialogue rights would have seemed as preposterous twenty years ago; and with my intimate knowledge of conditions on other worlds, I, of all men, should anticipate the value of broadcasting Tarzan to the eager multitudes that swarm our sister planets. In addition to which I am accorded another smile in a world none too generous with smiles since Wall Street started weeping down all our backs.

In some instances writers are now compelled to fight for certain rights, particularly those who enter into motion picture contracts; and this is wrong. Such things should be as much a matter of standard practice as are the efforts of motion picture producers to falsify royalty accounts.

Perhaps, when the Authors' League gets the Vestal copyright bill off its chest, as it may during the next fifty-six years, it will have time to devote to other things; and then, let us hope, it may negotiate the adoption of standard practices upon the part of all the various markets wherein writers sell their wares. All rights should be clearly and definitely defined so that there may be no misapprehension nor confusion concerning their interpretation. For example, our term serial rights is too general in its significance; the word serial should be abandoned and publication substituted for it. Then we would have: First magazine publication rights, second magazine publication rights, newspaper publication rights, book publication rights; and everyone would know what the other fellow was talking about.

It is something that we should give thought to, if for no other reason than to impress upon our minds the fact that in entering into agreements we should be quite certain that every reference to rights mentioned in the agreement is based upon a clear understanding by all parties of the definition of such rights, and that such a definition is embodied in the contract.

In closing, I should like to leave another thought with you. It is based upon a practice I have been trying to establish (not always successfully) in relation to certain of my own rights; it might be called the reversion of rights.

Owners lease houses, real estate, yachts, and other possessions for definite periods of time, at the end which all rights in the property revert to them. There are certain rights in literary productions that may be leased, rather than sold outright, to the great advantage of the author; and if the principle may be gradually established by the insistence of authors in a position to insist and with the moral aid of the Authors' League and others concerned with the welfare of writers, eventually will be accepted by the buyers of these rights as a matter of common practice.

There are many reasons why such a plan may be advantageous to authors without working any hardship on the original lessee. The latter is interested primarily and almost wholly in immediate profits; he would a not buy these rights on the prospects of profits to be derived ten years later. Therefore, he is not paying for the profits that may be derived subsequent to a reasonaable earning life of the property and, consequently, should not own them.

The principal advantages to the author are the possibly remote contingency of increased value after a lapse of years and the ability to take these rights off the market upon the termination of the lease. This latter is especially important in the matter of motion picture and radio rights, and will be in television rights when they develop.

Sales of motion picture rights are often embarrassed, complicated, or estopped by the natural fear on the part of a potential purchaser that the owner of the picture rights in another story by the same author will reissue it for the purpose of reaping the benefits of expensive exploitation of the later picture, at the same time competing with the new picture in the exhibitor market. Doubtless, similar conditions will arise in connection with radio and television rights.

Three years should be the limit of radio contracts, at least until we have gained greater knowledge of this field through experience; five to ten years should be the limit of motion picture contracts, most of which can be negotiated on a seven year basis. We may safely leave the duration of television and interplanetary rights to the future.

In any event, watch all of your rights all of the time; they are the basis of your entire literary estate. You will find plenty of people willing and anxious to steal them, and in remote corners of the earth, too. I have had rights purloined in Italy, Russia, and India, and, of course, New York; but naturally a man cannot be expected to watch all the thieves on this planet when, so much of his time is spent on Mars and Venus . . .


Beloved by small boys, emulated by growing lads, and sighed over on occasion by adults, Tarzan of the Apes remains today the symbol of the back-to-the-primeval spirit that gives little boys the nightmare and either sends their elder brothers mooning up the stairs to day dream, or ejects them whooping out the front door looking for a dog to chase.

Eighteen years ago, Edgar Rice Burroughs playfully conceived "Tarzan of the Apes." He did it with no more African experience than came to him as department manager of Sears-RoeBuck, and later treasurer of the American Battery Co.

Today, Tarzan is in the magazines, cartoon strips, novels, newspapers, and on the radio, and stage. Besides the long Tarzan series Mr. Burroughs has written "Thuvia, Maid of Mars," "The Warlord of Mars," and in fact a complete series of adventures in love, war, and death on Mars. His character Tarzan, one can honestly say, has been pressed into the consciousness of the nation.


THE WRITERS 1932 YEAR BOOK & MARKET GUIDE


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