How does one do a copyright holder search?

[womzilla]

I'm pretty sure there's someone on my flist who knows the answer to this.

Let's say that I'm interested in doing an adaptation of a novel into another medium. The original author is dead and the book is out of print.

How would I go about finding the person who currently owns the copyright? If the work was written before 1977, how can I determine that the work was properly copyrighted at all?

Comments

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

It's not standard for publishing contracts to have revert clauses (rights revert after n years of being out-of-print)?

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

She did say "so they still hold those rights unless they reverted them". Reversion is not usually automatic--most of the contracts I've seen, the author (or designee) has to request reversion. The condition for granting the reversion can vary.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

Ah. For some reason, I thought revert clauses were automatic. But of course that doesn't benefit the guy writing the contract.

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

Of course, some publishers will simply insist that the title has never gone out of print, and apparently never will. One artist I know begged all his friends to order his book from The Publisher Who Shall Not Be Named to force them to reply it was no longer available he'd have "proof" it was out of print...