Please note that it's the weekend, it's after hours, I have no formal legal training, and I'm not speaking for my employer. I merely (think that I) understand my employer's perspective on this issue.

O'Reilly holds the copyright on the book on behalf of Damian. This gives O'Reilly the right to prosecute copyright violations as well as to issue reprints and revisions, as desired. (It also frees Damian from having to pursue violations on his own, as that's a big hassle for an individual.)

With few exceptions, a book's title or cover image is very difficult to copyright. (You also don't "lose" a copyright if you don't "protect" it. You're probably thinking of trademark, which is a very different thing. There are no submarine trademarks, if the system works by design.)

O'Reilly does claim trademark over the title and the use of the cover image (and association of a staghound with Perl Best Practices) within a specific trade: technical books. You do have to register a trademark. (I don't know how that works with regard to books; I've never worked on that part.)

However, the important part of trademark is the likelihood of confusion. Is posting a picture of the book online sufficient to confuse people that the book is somehow yours or that you have the official book or represent a product in the same trade as that of the mark holder? It's easier to answer that sentence than to parse it: of course not.

Trademark would come into play if you were to produce a book that had a similar cover or title and try to sell it; then it would be important to decide whether you intended confusion in the marketplace. This is still very distinct from copyright. You could be guilty of trademark infringement without copyright infringement or vice versa.

In other words, you have the right answer (post it; it's cool) though your reasoning isn't quite precisely accurate.

You can loose a U.S. copyright if you don't "adequately" protect it, so their future ownership can be weakened every time they say "sure no problem".

I wasn't thinking of trademark actually. If I'm wrong, it's from information about copyright. You and chromatic have no doubt had more input from lawers who should know, so your info is the better bet, but just for completeness I'll pass on the info I'm working from. It's from NEC v. Intel and from theater, and I'll tuck it in a readmore so it doesn't clutter people's screens. (Of course, feel free to skip the whole post if it's gotten too OT and obscure to retain interest.)
Read more... (3 kB)

My read is that the NEC v Intel is arguing about the presence of the copyright notice, which doesn't affect copyright status, but rather whether you can collect statutory damages as well as actual damages. All creative works are "born copyrighted" these days.

As for the Hal Holbrook case, I could explain that as not wanting to dilute the value of the material. For example, if 1000 people started presenting the llama class for free, the value of having a certified Stonehenge instructor do it for hire would diminish.

Neither of these cases are about sending out a "cease and desist" order when you see your copyright being violated. But that's precisely what you must do when you see trademark being violated, because it's not the mark itself that you care about, but the association of the mark with a particular company.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

She said Hal Holbrook would be obligated by contract to refer such a question to his agent, and his agent would have to say no, to protect Hal Holbrook's future rights to the material, even though the audience was small and he would want to say yes to support something which could be seen as a tribute and was cerainly no competition.

I don't know the details of the contract, but otherwise your actress friend was wrong (or at least working from some reading of copyright which I have never officially encountered in practice).