January 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] Bibliographic data
by D. Starner 13 Jan '05

13 Jan '05

"Wallace J.McLean" writes: > The benefit, of course, is that once the death date of an author is > conclusively determined, then, barring wrinkles like collaborators, > translators, co-authors, illustrators, and posthumous publication, all > of that author's works are, by definition, cleared. The catch is, you don't get to bar wrinkles like that. You have to deal with them. By the same rule of thumb, any book printed before 1923 is, by definition, cleared. Go US! > However, since third parties must also > rely on the term of copyright rules to determine what they, as third > parties, are entitled to do with a work, it would be unfair to the > public if they (we) were estopped from using an ancient work simply > because no one knew who the author was, to calculate the term, to > decide whether the work is public domain or not. In other words, there has to be special exceptions in the law because it's messier than just printed by date. > > I found "Oklahoma, and other poems" in my library. It took 30 seconds to > > verify that it was in the public domain in the US. It took 20 minutes of > > searching by library staff to find out that he died in 1951. > Either way, it's easier to look up <1001 -- probably around 750 -- > author's death dates (and not get some) than it is to look up 1001 -- > no less -- publication dates (and not get some of them, either). There is a grand total of one book that I've looked into and not been able to definitely pin down a publication date, and that was cleared anyway. I can walk the shelves of my library and check to see whether most books are in the public domain just by opening the cover. I can't do that with a life+years system; in that case, I have to remember when they died. > > You complain that a book you have doesn't have a publication date. In my > > experience, that's a rarity > > Not in mine, unfortunately. It's very common with 19th-century English > and American imprints, and extremely common with continental ones > before WWII. A American imprint without a date is in the public domain so long as you can prove it was printed before 1989. Go US! > > It's not that simple. > I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is. Translators? New > editions? Typographical arrangements? I'm blind to them for the purpose > of this analysis. Do they have an impact on what PG or anyone else can > do with those works? Yes. Do I care? Not for the purpose of this little > thought-experiment, no. Then you're stacking the deck. Anyone can win if they do that. > > Honestly, just confirming the death dates for most authors tells you that > > all of thier works are in the public domain in the US. The exception, > > works published after their death or still unpublished > Or works published after 1922. No, most authors died before 1923 and hence anything published after 1922 is in the public domain. > And I don't care to look up TWO data > points on many books; I'd rather just look up one data point, and > recycle as many of those lookups as I can. It's easier just to skip the whole thing altogether. If you're doing this for PG, the question shouldn't be what's easier, it should be what's useful to PG, which is US copyright law and publication dates. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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re: [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion
by D. Starner 13 Jan '05

13 Jan '05

> The US law is anything but messy. [...] > With the US law, you just take the printed publication date and > add 95 years. Everything before 1923 is in the public domain, which is a little better. The base of US law is simple; everything printed before 1923 or 95 years old is in the public domain. But there are a lot of books in the public domain due to quirks and various rules that are hard to check. There's six or seven different rules you have to apply (for instance, a book published outside the US that was not registered or not renewed in the US that was out of copyright in the home nation in 1998 or whenever the copyright nation signed a copyright agreement (if later), then it's in the public domain.) In that sense, it's very messy. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] Canadian and American copyrights
by Wallace J.McLean 13 Jan '05

13 Jan '05

>What does this mean for Project Gutenberg Canada? How much research is needed before >they could conclude that the identity of an author is not commonly known? Most "known" pseudonyms are either catalogued in the national union catalogue, or available through dead-tree reference sources. If searches of those two sources fail, then a letter of inquiry to one of the literary copyright collectives would probably suffice to act as a cover-your-ass. If these three lines of attack did not uncover the true identity of the author of an anonymous/pseudonymous work, then a court would probably conclude that the anon/psued term, not the life+ term, would apply, or was reasonably relied on by a third party re-using that work. This is a section, along with its predecessors, I have flagged to see if there's been any judicial comment on since the 1924 act was passed.

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Bibliographic data
by Wallace J.McLean 13 Jan '05

13 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- >From "D. Starner" <shalesller(a)writeme.com> Date Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:54:15 -0800 To gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27 >> What would you rather do: >> >> look up the publication dates for 1001 books and the death dates of the >> author(s) for a large subset thereof? >I don't have to look up death dates. This is as much a complaint that >it's different rather than it's messier. The US law *IS* messier. I have to work in both. I'll take life+ any day. >> look up just the death dates for < 1001 authors? >I found "Oklahoma, and other poems" in my library. It took 30 seconds to >verify that it was in the public domain in the US. It took 20 minutes of >searching by library staff to find out that he died in 1951. Either way, it's easier to look up <1001 -- probably around 750 -- author's death dates (and not get some) than it is to look up 1001 -- no less -- publication dates (and not get some of them, either). >You complain that a book you have doesn't have a publication date. In my >experience, that's a rarity Not in mine, unfortunately. It's very common with 19th-century English and American imprints, and extremely common with continental ones before WWII. >, and I still fail to find to understand why >European publishers do that. If you don't have a publication date, how >do you know that it's not a modern edition, and hence has typographical >copyright in the EU, or even new editorial content? I don't. And I don't care. I'm just going by the title of the original and considering the copyright in the original for the purposes of this experiment. I barely have time to do this experiment with the variables I've been given and the variables I've set for myself; buggered if I'll add more to the mix. >How do you prove that >to the satisfaction of PG, who might have to prove it in court someday? What does this have to do with PG proving anything in court? This is about the narrow question of considering the impact of life+50 vs. life+70 term on the list as it has been provided to us by a third party. >> There are more books than authors. Just by confirming the death dates >> for CS Lewis, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Verdi, etc., >> gives me the public domain date for multiple books at a go. >It's not that simple. I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is. Translators? New editions? Typographical arrangements? I'm blind to them for the purpose of this analysis. Do they have an impact on what PG or anyone else can do with those works? Yes. Do I care? Not for the purpose of this little thought-experiment, no. >Just because Baudelaire died before 1935, doesn't >mean the translator for Les Fleurs du Mal died before 1935, I am only considering copyright in the original, pre-humous, untranslated edition of any of the works on the list. >Honestly, just confirming the death dates for most authors tells you that >all of thier works are in the public domain in the US. The exception, >works published after their death or still unpublished Or works published after 1922. And I don't care to look up TWO data points on many books; I'd rather just look up one data point, and recycle as many of those lookups as I can. You are welcome to do the same analysis of that list of 1001 under US law. But I'm not going to.

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Re: [gutvol-d] Canadian and American copyrights
by D. Starner 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

Robert Shimmin writes: > Exactly. A pseudonymous work is only pub+50 while the author's actual identity is not publicly > known: > > 6.1 Except as provided in section 6.2, where the identity of the author of a work is unknown, > copyright in the work shall subsist for whichever of the following terms ends earlier: > > (a) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work > and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year, and > > (b) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the making of the work and a period > of seventy-five years following the end of that calendar year, > > but where, during that term, the author's identity becomes commonly known, the term provided in > section 6 applies. What does this mean for Project Gutenberg Canada? How much research is needed before they could conclude that the identity of an author is not commonly known? -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Andale Mono font
by N Wolcott 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

I used to have the Andale Mono ttf font, but since I reinstalled windows and Office it has disappeared. Where did it come from ? Font has all distinguishable characters. N Wolcott nwolcott2(a)post.harvard.edu

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Re: [gutvol-d] Canadian and American copyrights
by D. Starner 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

> > Personal Name: Powell, Van. [from old catalog] > > Is it PD in Canada under life+50? Who knows? I've done some > > searching and cannot find any dates for the author. > > If there's any chance this is a pseudonym, then it's public-domain in > Canada (publication+50 rule). So copyright law in Canada is designed to screw the little guys? It's highly unfair to give one author life+50 because she's well known and give another publication+50 because he's not and "there's [some] chance [his name] is a pseudonym". Anyway, I have a hard time believing that the Paul French novels are going to be in the public-domain in Canada in a decade because Isaac Asimov used a pseudonym when writing them. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27
by D. Starner 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

> What would you rather do: > > look up the publication dates for 1001 books and the death dates of the > author(s) for a large subset thereof? I don't have to look up death dates. This is as much a complaint that it's different rather than it's messier. > look up just the death dates for < 1001 authors? I found "Oklahoma, and other poems" in my library. It took 30 seconds to verify that it was in the public domain in the US. It took 20 minutes of searching by library staff to find out that he died in 1951. Mind you, any other library in the world would have taken longer or failed to come up with anything, as he used to live in this area and his death date was found in a book of local gravestones. Finding the publication date was worlds easier. You complain that a book you have doesn't have a publication date. In my experience, that's a rarity, and I still fail to find to understand why European publishers do that. If you don't have a publication date, how do you know that it's not a modern edition, and hence has typographical copyright in the EU, or even new editorial content? How do you prove that to the satisfaction of PG, who might have to prove it in court someday? > There are more books than authors. Just by confirming the death dates > for CS Lewis, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Verdi, etc., > gives me the public domain date for multiple books at a go. It's not that simple. Just because Baudelaire died before 1935, doesn't mean the translator for Les Fleurs du Mal died before 1935, nor does it tell you who the translators were. You have to look up the translations of Les Fleurs du Mal, which will usually give you the publications dates, and then look up who the translators were and when they died, and they are much more unlikely to be well documented. If you go through that list, and mark The Flowers of Death as clearable because of when Baudelaire died, it's wrong; you've got to find out when it was translated into English and then when the translator died (much harder than the first.) Honestly, just confirming the death dates for most authors tells you that all of thier works are in the public domain in the US. The exception, works published after their death or still unpublished, are often still under copyright in life+x places, too. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Latin quote in Sherlock Holmes
by Andrew Sly 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

For general interest, here's an posting from alt.language.latin which mentioned Project Gutenberg. It's not very complimentry, but it does say that we got the passage in question correct. Andrew Newsgroups: alt.language.latin Date: 2005-01-12 04:06:38 PST James A. Temple wrote: > "August de Man" <audeman apenstaart wanadoo punt nl> wrote in message > news:41e4e2b0$0$47653$cd19a363@news.wanadoo.nl... > >> I wondered about "contemplar", and rightly so, because Dr. Watson >> doesn't > cite Horace quite correctly. It should have been: >> sic solitus: 'populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo >> ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.' >> Search for "nummos contemplar" and it's all about Sherlock Holmes; >> search for "nummos contemplor", and you find the Latin texts. > > Fascinating! The text from which I copied the line attributed to Dr. > Watson was from the Easton Press publication of "The Adventures of > Sherlock Holmes". An excerpt from the title page reads, "A > definitive text, corrected and edited by Edgar W. Smith, ...". I > suppose we shall never know whether Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was > responsible for the errant "letter", followed by an oversight of > Edgar W. Smith or whether Smith made the change himself. The plot > thickens. As a general rule (and you should have learned this in the course of a long life), it is unwise to place too much trust in what you might read on title pages. Simple errors such as this are easily introduced by compositors when reprinting, for example for American editions (which were often pirated). For what it is worth, the Project Gutenberg eText version (and Project Gutenberg are a byword for inaccuracy, mainly due to their choice of editions) has the quotation correctly. They claim to be reproducing the 1887 text, if you can believe that :-)

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Re: [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27
by Joshua Hutchinson 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

Ok, and after you move on to Joe Jim Billy Bob, the obscure hill-billy author? While you're busy trying to track down when he died, I simply flipped the book open to page two, looked at the nice number printed there, and checked off "Yep, out of copyright" and moved on to the next book. As David pointed out, there are some circumstances where it can get ugly, but those are fairly rare. The majority of US copyright issues are easier to handle than the majority of Life+XX copyright issues. Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wallace J.McLean" <ag737(a)freenet.carleton.ca> To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27 Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:21:35 -0500 > > I'm being dead serious. > > What would you rather do: > > look up the publication dates for 1001 books and the death dates of the > author(s) for a large subset thereof? > > look up just the death dates for < 1001 authors? > > There are more books than authors. Just by confirming the death dates > for CS Lewis, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Verdi, etc., > gives me the public domain date for multiple books at a go. > > The US law is messy. The fact that it's nice and clean for pre-1923 > imprints doesn't unmessy it. It's a goddamn mess. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua(a)hutchinson.net> > Date Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:53:17 -0500 > To "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > Subject re: [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion > > > Are you being serious? The US law is anything but messy. Instead of > trying to find out exactly when the author died (and that can be harder > than it sounds for obscure authors) or even more fun, all the editors, > illustrators and contributors to a composite work, find out when they > ALL died, take the one that died last .... With the US law, you just > take the printed publication date and add 95 years. It is a > ridiculously long copyright term, true, but it is very easy to > determine. > > Josh > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. re: Top 1000 collection list and suggestion (Wallace J.McLean) > 2. re: Top 1000 collection list and suggestion (Joshua Hutchinson) > 3. re: Top 1000 collection list and suggestion (D. Starner) > 4. Re: Re: Problem in file retrieval (Philip Baker) > 5. Canadian and American copyrights (Andrew Sly) > 6. Re: Canadian and American copyrights (Robert Shimmin) From: Wallace J.McLean <ag737(a)freenet.carleton.ca> To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject: re: [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:41:31 -0500 > > > I'm on it, but can only do it considering life+50 and life+70. I don't > have the time to apply the messy US law. I'll post up my results when > they're ready. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From Steve Herber <herber(a)thing.com> > Date Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:17:24 -0800 (PST) > To gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > Subject [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion > > An annotated version of this list with two extra pieces of data would > make an interesting Project Gutenberg web page. I would like to see a > link to the Gutenberg edition and the date the item went into or will > go into the public domain. I think some people will start to see the > negative aspect of the long copyright times at the same time > discovering how > many documents are available from the Project. From: Joshua Hutchinson <joshua(a)hutchinson.net> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: re: [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:53:17 -0500 > > > Are you being serious? The US law is anything but messy. Instead of trying > to find out exactly when the author died (and that can be harder than it > sounds for obscure authors) or even more fun, all the editors, illustrators > and contributors to a composite work, find out when they ALL died, take the > one that died last .... With the US law, you just take the printed > publication date and add 95 years. It is a ridiculously long copyright term, > true, but it is very easy to determine. > > Josh > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wallace J.McLean" <ag737(a)freenet.carleton.ca> > > > > I'm on it, but can only do it considering life+50 and life+70. I don't > > have the time to apply the messy US law. I'll post up my results when > > they're ready. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From Steve Herber <herber(a)thing.com> > > Date Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:17:24 -0800 (PST) > > To gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > > Subject [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion > > > > An annotated version of this list with two extra pieces of data would > > make an interesting Project Gutenberg web page. I would like to see a > > link to the Gutenberg edition and the date the item went into or will > > go into the public domain. I think some people will start to see the > > negative aspect of the long copyright times at the same time > > discovering how > > many documents are available from the Project. > > _______________________________________________ > > gutvol-d mailing list > > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d From: D. Starner <shalesller(a)writeme.com> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: re: [gutvol-d] Top 1000 collection list and suggestion Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:11:03 -0800 > > > > The US law is anything but messy. [...] With the US law, you just take the > > printed publication date and add 95 years. > > Everything before 1923 is in the public domain, which is a little > better. The base of US law is simple; everything printed before 1923 > or 95 years old is in the public domain. But there are a lot of books > in the public domain due to quirks and various rules that are hard to > check. There's six or seven different rules you have to apply (for > instance, a book published outside the US that was not registered or > not renewed in the US that was out of copyright in the home nation in > 1998 or whenever the copyright nation signed a copyright agreement (if > later), then it's in the public domain.) In that sense, it's very messy. > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From: Philip Baker <phil(a)thalasson.com> To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Re: Problem in file retrieval Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 23:26:47 +0000 > > > In article <41E379E4.5090603(a)perathoner.de>, Marcello Perathoner > <marcello(a)perathoner.de> writes > > Philip Baker wrote: > > > >> Search engine bots don't usually give a referrer and so they will not > >> see any change. > > > > Thats exactly what I want. Otherwise they would index the bibrec page > > instead of the book. > > > > The user clicking on the search results will get to the bibrec page, where > > she can select a file format and compression. > > > > You listed getting a better Google ranking as one of the aims of the > change. > -- > Philip Baker From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: [gutvol-d] Canadian and American copyrights Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:46:29 -0800 (PST) > > > > Re the recent discussion of various copyright regimes... > > Yes, the U.S. was a hold-out through most of the 20th > century, avoiding the major convention (Berne) that > most other Western nations were party to. > > But I would argue that if the U.S. did not have > its unique copyright history, then Project Gutenberg > would be rather a different thing today. > > Neither American or Canadian copyright laws are > "better", they are just different. Each provides > its own problems for those wanting to utilize the > public domain. > > In a life+N regime, it's a little odd if you > find yourself wishing someone had died earlier. > > (Just today, I looked up the dates for a book I was > hoping would be public domain, only to find--the > author died in 1968. Darn.) > > And you also have the uncertain situations. Here is > a description from the LoC of a title that have > availible, if I want it: > > LC Control Number: 32012123 > Type of Material: Text (Book, Microform, Electronic, etc.) > Personal Name: Powell, Van. [from old catalog] > Main Title: The mystery crash, > Published/Created: New York, Chicago, A. L. Burt company [c1932] > Description: 285 p. front. 19 cm. > LC Classification: PZ7.P88 Sk no. 1 > > Is it PD in Canada under life+50? Who knows? I've done some > searching and cannot find any dates for the author. > > > Andrew From: Robert Shimmin <shimmin(a)uiuc.edu> To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Canadian and American copyrights Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:11:30 -0600 > > > Many L+?? regimes have provisions for a fixed term when the author's death > date cannot readily be determined. I couldn't tell you if Canada is one of > those jurisdictions. > > -- RS > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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