Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Pennsylvania

Re: Is a publisher liable for copyright infringement

It is possible for copyright to vest automatically in the employer (in this case the "author" of the book) for certain works. These works are defined in 17 USC 101 under the "work made for hire" doctrine.

Aside from these works and absent an express assignment from yourself to the "author," I tend to agree that seemingly there appears to be a copyright violation. I do not believe, as I understand it, that the publisher is off the hook. Exclusive rights of the copyright owner are violated absent fair use (fair use factors are found in 17 USC 107). I doubt that fair use has occurred here.

As far as your rights, it is always best to pursue the most non-adversarial means possible to resolve the situation. When you retain counsel, make sure that you forward to him or her all of your correspondence to/from the "author" and/or the publisher as well as provide information insofar as what you mean by "original files" with respect to the manuscript.

Iam in Pittsburgh -- feel free to e-mail me if you would like to discuss this further. (I can also tell you more about my firm. I practice IP law, including copyright and patent matters. I have handled matters for authors before. Our practice primarily focuses on patents, but there have been a lot of copyright matters as of late.)