Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 11:07:15 +0200 From: Avenarius X-Mailer: The Bat! (v1.60) Personal Organization: Book of Quotations X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Message-ID: <17018942453.20020612110715@avenarius.sk> Return-Receipt-To: a@avenarius.sk To: [...] Subject: Rex Stout quotations MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear Mr. [...]: I am writing to you because in your letter and email from April 4, 2002, you identified yourself as representative of the Rex Stout estate. I would like to inform you that (as already stated in my post from April 5, 2002, ) I have abandoned all plans to publish Rex Stout fulltext files on my website -- that is, until the copyright extinguishes or until the copyright holder considers the option to make hard-to-find Stout volumes available for download for a fee to be payable to the copyright holder. Moreover, I learned that in recent weeks Bantam Books have started re-publishing some of the previously unavailable Rex Stout volumes, now featuring the "As Seen On TV" label; this is a good omen and let us hope that the entire Stout corpus will thus be made available for purchase (in Europe as well as in the US); after all the one and only motivation I had had in intending to publish electronic Rex Stout fulltext files had been the impression I had formed that all Rex Stout publishing (prominently, Bantam Books' aborted "Rex Stout Library") had come to a permanent halt. My present request concerns the main subject matter of my website project (see http://avenarius.sk/intro.htm ): that of collecting admirable or noteworthy literary quotations. I would like to include Rex Stout quotations (from any Rex Stout volumes that are worth quoting and available to me) on the website, along with my commentaries and analyses in separate but cross-referenced footnote files. This is how I intend to present excerpts from the finest writings of as many authors as possible, English-speaking or otherwise -- that is, not merely from the writings of Rex Stout. Publishing such commented excerpts is likely to benefit the copyright holder. For instance, after I had made quotations from Ross MacDonald's _The Ivory Grin_ available on the website ( http://avenarius.sk/rmacdonald/ivorygrin.htm ), I received several emails from site visitors who said, basically, that the quotations were so impressive and had whetted their appetite to the degree where they decided they must get hold of the entire book to read it. That is exactly the effect desired in publishing Rex Stout quotation files: popularizing Mr. Stout's writing. I would also like to inform you that I have by now thoroughly studied the Slovak copyright law and also taken legal advice to ensure that my website strictly complies with all stipulations of the law. You may find the Slovak copyright law on the web at http://www.copyright.sk/law/menu.htm ; unfortunately, I've been unable to locate an English translation of the law on the web. For my present request, § 22 of the Slovak copyright law is pertinent ( http://www.copyright.sk/law/az22.htm ); it basically says it is permitted to quote short sections of another's work without permission as long as the quoted segments are meaningful parts of the larger body of work that quotes them. This, I believe, would be the case for all Rex Stout quotation files intended for future publication on my website, as the website's goal is not to publish any quotations, but only those that excel in some way, to comment and analyze them; literary analysis is scarcely possible, however, without quoting the segment of a literary work that you are attempting to analyze. (My university diploma is in English and German studies and my diploma thesis was in German literature.) Therefore it would seem there is sufficient legal basis for me to go ahead and publish the Rex Stout quotation files and/or their analyses even without asking for the copyright holder's permission; yet I prefer to ask for the permission in advance, to avoid future misunderstandings. I would be grateful to you if you could let me know what your clients' position on publishing the quotation files is. Please convey my sincere regards to Mrs. Rebecca Stout Bradbury and to Mrs. Barbara Stout, along with renewed apology for any wrongdoing I may have unwittingly committed in my earlier insufficient knowledge of the implications of international copyright agreements. Respectfully yours, Alexander Avenarius www.avenarius.sk [full address and phone number] mailto:a@avenarius.sk -- [processed by "The Bat!", Version 1.60]