Subject: Rex Stout quotations
From: Avenarius <[email-masked]>
To: [...]
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 11:07:15 +0200

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, <msgid:[email-masked]> ) 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:[email-masked]

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