[Commons-Law] Valuing the Mahatma's Words

[Pranesh Prakash]

Dear All,
Does anyone know more about the mutual trade in copyright that this article
talks about?  And does anyone have any guesses as to why don't we hear about
copyright auctions?  I'm sure it will be more efficient than current
practices of negotiating individually with a number of different publishers.

Regards,
Pranesh

>From Daily News & Analysis:
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1149013

*Valuing the Mahatma's Words*
Puneet Nicholas Yadav
Monday, February 04, 2008  10:21 IST

NEW DELHI: Sixty years after his death, the Mahatma's philosophies and works
continue to evoke interest and spell big business too. So much so that
there's a 'copyright exhibition' of works on and by Gandhi at the Annual
World Book Fair in the Capital.

Organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), the exhibition titled 'Gandhi —
in words and deeds' will give publishers from across the world an
opportunity to buy and sell the copyrights of their titles on Gandhi.

The exhibition showcases nearly 1,200 books on Bapu, besides books authored
by Gandhi himself, and compilations of his letters and other works.

The exhibition also has on display books published by the Navjivan Trust
which currently owns the copyright for all the 194 books and compilations by
the Mahatma.

The trust also has rights over several other books on him including the
10-part biography written by Mahatma's secretary of 28 years, Pyarelal and
his sister Sushila Nayyar. But the copyright will expire this year, and this
has brought Navjivan to the exhibition.

"We constantly get queries about the works written by Bapu and the other
books published by us on him. As our copyright expires this year, we thought
the exhibition could give us a good platform to showcase the work to
publishers from across the world. They can see the books and contact us for
the copyright," said managing trustee Jitendra Desai.
Nearly 160 publishers are participating in the exhibition and the NBT has
catalogued about 700 books, which feature in the expo. The catalogue will
enable publishers to continue the copyright sale and purchase process even
after the exhibition ends on February 10.

Many of the books, including a rare five-part biography of the Mahatma in
Urdu, have not yet been translated. The NBT hopes the exhibition will create
an awareness and publishers from across the globe will show an interest in
translating the works as well as buying the copyright.

"We have been receiving tremendous response ever since we charted out the
proposal for this expo. Many international publishers have shown interest in
exchange of copyrights of their works. The catalogue will help these
publishers to mutually trade in copyright," said NBT director Prof Nuzhat
Hasan.

And Gandhi's works would also spell big bucks for publishers. If more than
one publisher bids for the copyright of a particular book, the publisher can
trade with the highest bidder.
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