Miland:Returning to the thread's theme, does anyone know the law on copyright in the U.S., as it applies to publishers changing an author's work without permission?

Depends on what kind of agreement was signed. I do some freelance work for a small book publisher, and they always let their authors have final approval of any manuscript before it is published-- if there are unresolvable differences then they just don't publish it. Not all publishers do it this way though.