On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 10:39:17PM -0500, Robert Cicconetti wrote:
On 1/30/06, Jon Noring <jon@noring.name> wrote:
Robert Cicconetti wrote:
Actually, that would 1928+95=2023, provided you find one of the first few printings. Sorry. Still not PD in the US for quite some time.
However, if one reads the link I provided previously, see:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/rananim/lawrence/lcl.html
It says:
"...As it was published privately [in 1928], no copyright was issued, so the novel was free game to any and all who wished to pirate their own editions, and the pirates could sell them for as much as possible."
So, given this, is the original text public domain in the U.S.? If not, who is the "rights holder"?
Then you'll have to establish that it wasn't under copyright in the UK in 1996 (Instead of using the blanket Life+70), and further search for renewals under US law for a Rule 6 clearance. An article would not suffice.
If you wish to try to clear the book, feel free. It's not something that I'm particularly interested in. I would expect it to take a lot of time and effort both on your part and for Mr. Newby (who as we all know has gobs of free time).
R C
I don't see any indication that this isn't covered by GATT, as described in our Rule 6 "howto" at http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto No "registration" for copyright was/is required in the UK nor, indeed, anywhere...it's a US invention that didn't catch on much elsewhere, and in fact is no longer required in the US. The GATT actually rolled back copyrights (or created enforcement opportunities, anyway) for items previously published in the US written by non-US authors. The Grove Press was one of several publishers that specialized in these types of items. From what I understand, it was legal then (or at least not very enforceable, if illegal), but GATT made things crystal clear. Our "Rule 6" howto is a highly distilled version of GATT prepared & endorsed by some of our volunteer legal experts... As mentioned earlier, this should be copyright-free in life+70 countries, as well as life+50. BTW, the unpublished (or largely undistributed) manuscripts mentioned might be even worse off! See our copyright howto for the dates. But the limited distribution of thos might be enough to not treat them as unpublished manuscripts. To clear this item as public domain, we'd need confirmation from one of our legal experts (which I won't ask for, based on what I've seen so far), or a letter from a qualified lawyer, or something similar (like a letter from the Librarian of Congress, or Lawrence's estate). Yes, a pretty high barrier. Unless, of course, I'm missing something... -- Greg