----- Original Message -----
From "D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> Date Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:41:44 -0800 To "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org> Subject Re: [gutvol-d] Bibliographic data
"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!
And they are dealwithable on the basis of intrinsic evidence, intrinsic to the book. I'll take a post-1923 public domain any day, thank you very much. I'm currently working on the oeuvres of an author who died in 1939, so that the text, at least, of all his books, are public domain in Canada. (Some of the illustrations are by an illustrator who died in the 1970s; the illustrations aren't clearable, but can be excised.) However, about half of his works are post-1923 imprints. Boo, U.S.
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.
The US "just printed by date" rule won't be around forever: assuming no further changes in the US law, you'll have to start dealing with many of the same questions starting in 2019... and you'll STILL have a smaller public domain to play with.
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.
You've been extremely lucky. In my personal library, I'd say 5 to 10 percent of my historical collection has indeterminate publication dates.
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.
And you still have to do that for every single book; you can't batch- clear.
A American imprint without a date is in the public domain so long as you can prove it was printed before 1989. Go US!
I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is. Translators? New editions? Typographical arrangements? I'm blind to them for the
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
I'm not certain that's a correct statement of the law. Are you? purpose little
thought-experiment, no.
Then you're stacking the deck. Anyone can win if they do that.
Not at all. I'm just making my life easier. Why are you being a prick?
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.
Oh? Tell that to the PG clearance team.
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.
I'm doing it for me. Someone else can do it for PG under US law. Are you volunteering? Thanks.
The US "just printed by date" rule won't be around forever: assuming no further changes in the US law, you'll have to start dealing with many of the same questions starting in 2019... and you'll STILL have a smaller public domain to play with.
Actually, when the US public domain begins to grow again in 2019, it will still be on a fixed-term system for a long time to come. No life+X copyrights were issued in the United States until January 1, 1978.
And you still have to do that for every single book; you can't batch- clear.
You have to do it for every single book under a life + system, too: you have to examine the book to see who the author is before you can refer to your list of death-dates. Of course, this is a silly argument to begin with, because regardless of the copyright regime, verifying public domain status is usually going to be a negligible effort compared to actually digitizing the book.
A American imprint without a date is in the public domain so long as you can prove it was printed before 1989. Go US!
I'm not certain that's a correct statement of the law. Are you?
It's not exactly a correct statement of the law, but you won't get into too much trouble following it. More correctly, before the effective date of the Berne Convention Implementation Act (March 1, 1989), if a book was published in the United States, by the authority of the copyright holder, and did not bear proper notice of copyright (which includes a date), it invalidated copyright in the work. Copyrights on works of foreign authors that lost copyright by this provision were restored on January 1, 1996, but the possession of a copy without the copyright notice, published before March 1, 1989, is usually enough to base an "innocent infringement" defense on. -- RS
participants (2)
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Robert Shimmin -
Wallace J.McLean