Re: [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27

12 Jan 2005

      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@freenet.carleton.ca>
To: gutvol-d@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@hutchinson.net>
Date  Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:53:17 -0500
To  "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d@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@freenet.carleton.ca>
To: gutvol-d@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@thing.com>
Date  Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:17:24 -0800 (PST)
To  gutvol-d@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@hutchinson.net>
To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d@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@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@thing.com>
Date  Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:17:24 -0800 (PST)
To  gutvol-d@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@lists.pglaf.org
http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
From: D. Starner <shalesller@writeme.com>
To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d@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.
--
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From: Philip Baker <phil@thalasson.com>
To: gutvol-d@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@perathoner.de>, Marcello Perathoner
<marcello@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@victoria.tc.ca>
To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d@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@uiuc.edu>
To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d@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

...
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Joshua Hutchinson

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