Anthropic Copyright Fun

All Authors I Have Heard From Are Having One Issue Or Another…

Filling out these forms for percentages of a book is often just head-scratching. I now no longer doubt that some payments will be going out by November 15th, but I can not imagine the special master having to untangle some of this. Going to take time.

All the stuff that writers are talking about traditional publishers claiming 100% is one thing. I got some of those I have not gotten to yet. And other percentage issues.

But yesterday I had one claim number I got from them that was not on my records. In fact, the three titles and four books were not even in any of my records that I had claimed them. Neither had Kris. But clearly this claim had been added in.

One book claim was straight forward. I got 50% of a book I wrote that I had flat forgot to check on under that name. My real name had made it to the form. Then there was an anthology I got a 6% share and it seemed right. Then a Trek book that Kris and I wrote together under Sandy Schofield. The book was on the claim form twice because it had been reprinted under a brand new copyright at some point and both were in the stolen pile.

One gave me 50%, Pocket books 50% and Simon and Schuster 100% I marked the second as a duplicate and everything agreed on that one. The same book with a different copyright number had Pocket at 50% and me and Kris and then Kris under the Sandy Schofield name as each getting a third of the other half. I marked the Schofield name as a duplicate, changed our percentages to 25% each and it was all accepted.

So if/when they pay, those books were a good free money that I had nowhere on any of my original claims. Great fun.