4 ms·

did they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?

by boppo1 3y ago

tyingq 3y ago
There's not a universal country-wide law in the US. Some states have "Son of Sam" laws that keep prisoners from profiting from publicity about their crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law Though with Ted, he probably had things other than his crimes he could have published and made money from. Of course, any earnings could end up going to a civil suit or existing orders of victim restitution. None of that seems directly related to intellectual property rights though. The prisoner retains those just like anyone else. I suppose there might be some cases of asset forfeiture for remediation or fines?
- tyingq 3y ago
  Just noticed that the forward for one of his books (mentioned in a peer comment) has an example of what I described above in Kaczynski's words... "I simply have not had the time to organize, rewrite, and complete the contents of this book. The principal reason why I have not had time is that agencies of the United States government have created unnecessary legal difficulties for me. To mention only the most important of these difficulties, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California has formally proposed to round up and confiscate the original and every copy of everything I have ever written and turn over all such papers to my alleged "victims" through a fictitious sale that will allow the "victims" to acquire all of the papers without having to pay anything for them. Under this plan, the government would even confiscate papers that I have given to libraries, including papers that have been on library shelves for several years..." [1] [1] https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Sl... I don't know how that turned out, though. He does mention his lawyers were fighting the plan. Also interesting that he keeps putting the word victims in quotes, in a book published in 2008.
arp242 3y ago
As far as I know he was able to correspond fairly freely, but all of mail was being read (which is standard practice for high-security prisoners I believe). In my other comment I linked to an author who corresponded with Kaczynski and wrote down his experiences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 He also published some books (Techno1ogica1 Slavery, Anti-tech Revolution), which is his manifesto with some additional essays and letters. > Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US? The author; nothing changes about that.

did they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?

by boppo1 3y ago

did they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?

There's not a universal country-wide law in the US. Some states have "Son of Sam" laws that keep prisoners from profiting from publicity about their crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law Though with Ted, he probably had things other than his crimes he could have published and made money from. Of course, any earnings could end up going to a civil suit or existing orders of victim restitution. None of that seems directly related to intellectual property rights though. The prisoner retains those just like anyone else. I suppose there might be some cases of asset forfeiture for remediation or fines?

tyingq 3y ago
Just noticed that the forward for one of his books (mentioned in a peer comment) has an example of what I described above in Kaczynski's words... "I simply have not had the time to organize, rewrite, and complete the contents of this book. The principal reason why I have not had time is that agencies of the United States government have created unnecessary legal difficulties for me. To mention only the most important of these difficulties, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California has formally proposed to round up and confiscate the original and every copy of everything I have ever written and turn over all such papers to my alleged "victims" through a fictitious sale that will allow the "victims" to acquire all of the papers without having to pay anything for them. Under this plan, the government would even confiscate papers that I have given to libraries, including papers that have been on library shelves for several years..." [1] [1] https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Sl... I don't know how that turned out, though. He does mention his lawyers were fighting the plan. Also interesting that he keeps putting the word victims in quotes, in a book published in 2008.

arp242 3y ago

As far as I know he was able to correspond fairly freely, but all of mail was being read (which is standard practice for high-security prisoners I believe). In my other comment I linked to an author who corresponded with Kaczynski and wrote down his experiences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 He also published some books (Techno1ogica1 Slavery, Anti-tech Revolution), which is his manifesto with some additional essays and letters. > Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US? The author; nothing changes about that.