Cite as: 533 U. S. 483 (2001)
Stevens, J., dissenting
publisher of a collective work, § 201(c) creates the opposite incentive, stating that, absent some agreement to the contrary, the publisher acquires from the author only "the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series." 4 Congress intended this limitation on what the author is presumed to give away primarily to keep publishers from "revis[ing] the contribution itself or includ[ing] it in a new anthology or an entirely different magazine or other collective work." H. R. Rep. 122-123.5
4 Respondents Garson and Robbins argue that the § 201(c) privilege is completely nontransferable. See Brief for Respondents Garson et al. 26- 29. The District Court properly rejected this argument, see 972 F. Supp. 804, 815-816 (SDNY 1997), which, in my view, is supported by neither the text nor the legislative history of § 201(c). Publishers obviously cannot assign their publication privilege to another publisher such that the author's work appears in a wholly different collective work, but nothing in § 201(c) clearly prohibits a publisher from merely farming out the mundane task of printing or distributing its collective work or its revision of that collective work. Because neither the majority nor the Court of Appeals has reached this issue, however, see ante, at 493; 206 F. 3d 161, 165, and n. 2 (CA2 2000), I will not address it further.
5 As the District Court observed, representatives of authors had objected to an earlier draft of the 1976 Act that might have been read to give publishers the right to change the text of the contributions. That version gave publishers the privilege to print the individual article " 'as part of that particular collective work and any revisions of it.' " 972 F. Supp., at 819. Harriet Pilpel, "a prominent author representative," expressed the following concern: " 'I have but one question with reference to the wording, and that is with respect to the wording at the end of subsection (c) '. . . and any revisions of it.' If that means 'any revision of the collective work' in terms of changing the contributions, or their order, or including different contributions, obviously the magazine writers and photographers would not object. But there is an implication, or at least an ambiguity, that somehow the owner of the collective work has a right to make revisions in the contributions to the collective work. This is not and should not be the law, and consequently I suggest that the wording at the end of subsection (c) be changed to make that absolutely clear.' " 1964 Revision Bill with Discus-
509
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