Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod -- http://distributedcomputing.info - find out how to make your pc work for the community
--- Rod Butcher <rbutcher@hyenainternet.com> wrote:
<snip>
As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ?
As well as copyright on the content, which lasts for 70 years after the death of the author, the UK (and most other EU countries) have a copyright on the presentation, which in the case of the UK lasts for 25 years. This means that I can't really use any books (other than facsimile reprints) published after 1980 when I scan books for DP, as the typography is still copyright (in the country I'm living in, anyway!). -- Jon Ingram __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
Rod: Thanks for your interest! There are still a huge number of eligible, worth-while texts which have not been added to Project Gutenberg, simply because no volunteer has done them yet. For purposes of posting to Project Gutenberg, we need to be able to show that a book is not covered by copyright in the US, according to one of the rules as described here: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto Generally, that will mean that you must use an imprint that was published prior to 1923, or that _says_ it is a reprint of a pre-1923 imprint. Publishers do often put a new copyright notice on a book when there is actually no new material that merits copyright protection, but there is little we can do about that. Also, take a look at http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/ for the Copyright FAQ section. Thanks, Andrew On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 You might also check David's In-Progress list. That way, you can see if anyone else is working on that title. http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html Sincerely Aaron Cannon At 12:19 PM 9/29/2005, you wrote:
Rod:
Thanks for your interest!
There are still a huge number of eligible, worth-while texts which have not been added to Project Gutenberg, simply because no volunteer has done them yet.
For purposes of posting to Project Gutenberg, we need to be able to show that a book is not covered by copyright in the US, according to one of the rules as described here: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto
Generally, that will mean that you must use an imprint that was published prior to 1923, or that _says_ it is a reprint of a pre-1923 imprint. Publishers do often put a new copyright notice on a book when there is actually no new material that merits copyright protection, but there is little we can do about that.
Also, take a look at http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/ for the Copyright FAQ section.
Thanks, Andrew
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
- -- E-mail: cannona@fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona@hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959 Comment: Key available from all major key servers. iD8DBQFDPGuSI7J99hVZuJcRAjnDAKDS/2wQCZd6RjBcr5xUGhhwxJ/xjgCgmuPr JU4gV7Bueni++gwLxKENtIE= =yydG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
You might also check David's In-Progress list. That way, you can see if anyone else is working on that title. http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html
Sincerely Aaron Cannon
At 12:19 PM 9/29/2005, you wrote:
Rod:
Thanks for your interest!
There are still a huge number of eligible, worth-while texts which have not been added to Project Gutenberg, simply because no volunteer has done them yet.
For purposes of posting to Project Gutenberg, we need to be able to show that a book is not covered by copyright in the US, according to one of the rules as described here: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto
Generally, that will mean that you must use an imprint that was published prior to 1923, or that _says_ it is a reprint of a pre-1923 imprint. Publishers do often put a new copyright notice on a book when there is actually no new material that merits copyright protection, but there is little we can do about that.
Also, take a look at http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/ for the Copyright FAQ section.
Thanks, Andrew
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
- -- E-mail: cannona@fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona@hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959 Comment: Key available from all major key servers.
iD8DBQFDPGuSI7J99hVZuJcRAjnDAKDS/2wQCZd6RjBcr5xUGhhwxJ/xjgCgmuPr JU4gV7Bueni++gwLxKENtIE= =yydG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d -- http://distributedcomputing.info - find out how to make your pc work for
Can I get some clarification : I have read the copyright FAQ. Most of the books we deal with here in Australia were printed in the UK. Do the rules apply everywhere, in the country where I am or the country where the book was published ? Jonathan Ingram's post seems to indicate the latter i.e. all books he considers for scanning where he is (UK) must be elligible under UK law, irrespective of where they were published. Hence they have to have been published (effectively printed) more than 70 years ago, no matter where they were published. Correct ? I'm still faced with wondering how Wordsworth Classics UK can claim a "presentation of text format" copyright on books whereas Penguin Classics doesn't. thanks Rod The implication of this is that if the On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 17:31 -0500, Aaron Cannon wrote: the community
The implication of this is that if the On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 17:31 -0500, Aaron Cannon wrote:
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You might also check David's In-Progress list. That way, you can see if anyone else is working on that title. http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html
Sincerely Aaron Cannon
At 12:19 PM 9/29/2005, you wrote:
Rod:
Thanks for your interest!
There are still a huge number of eligible, worth-while texts which have not been added to Project Gutenberg, simply because no volunteer has done them yet.
For purposes of posting to Project Gutenberg, we need to be able to show that a book is not covered by copyright in the US, according to one of the rules as described here: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto
Generally, that will mean that you must use an imprint that was published prior to 1923, or that _says_ it is a reprint of a pre-1923 imprint. Publishers do often put a new copyright notice on a book when there is actually no new material that merits copyright protection, but there is little we can do about that.
Also, take a look at http://www.gutenberg.org/faq/ for the Copyright FAQ section.
Thanks, Andrew
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
- -- E-mail: cannona@fireantproductions.com Skype: cannona MSN Messenger: cannona@hotmail.com (Do not send E-mail to the hotmail address.)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959 Comment: Key available from all major key servers.
iD8DBQFDPGuSI7J99hVZuJcRAjnDAKDS/2wQCZd6RjBcr5xUGhhwxJ/xjgCgmuPr JU4gV7Bueni++gwLxKENtIE= =yydG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d -- http://distributedcomputing.info - find out how to make your pc work for
Sorry, there was a typo which made nonsense of my question. It should read :- Can I get some clarification : I have read the copyright FAQ. Most of the books we deal with here in Australia were printed in the UK. Do the rules apply everywhere, in the country where I am using the book or the country where the book was published ? Jonathan Ingram's post seems to indicate the second i.e. all books he considers for scanning where he is (UK) must be elligible under UK law, irrespective of where they were published. Hence they have to have been published (effectively printed) more than 70 years ago, no matter where they were published. Correct ? This would imply that the only law applicable here in Australia is Austraian law, no matter what the publisher in country X chooses to assert. Correct ? I'm still faced with wondering how Wordsworth Classics UK can claim a "presentation of text format" copyright on books whereas Penguin Classics doesn't. thanks Rod the community
Rod Butcher wrote:
I'm still faced with wondering how Wordsworth Classics UK can claim a "presentation of text format" copyright on books whereas Penguin Classics doesn't.
Because some publishers are not troubled by making fraudulent claims. In the United States at least it is not illegal to claim a copyright when there is none in fact, although from time to time there are proposals to change the law. Of course with the Berne convention implementation act no claim is required for copyright to attach (this message, for example, is copyrighted without me doing a thing) so it is best to simply ignore copyright notices, or the lack thereof, and make decisions based on application of local law, such as by looking at the author's date of death, or a books publication date.
Lee Passey wrote:
Rod Butcher wrote:
I'm still faced with wondering how Wordsworth Classics UK can claim a "presentation of text format" copyright on books whereas Penguin Classics doesn't.
Because some publishers are not troubled by making fraudulent claims. In the United States at least it is not illegal to claim a copyright when there is none in fact, although from time to time there are proposals to change the law. Of course with the Berne convention implementation act no claim is required for copyright to attach (this message, for example, is copyrighted without me doing a thing) so it is best to simply ignore copyright notices, or the lack thereof, and make decisions based on application of local law, such as by looking at the author's date of death, or a books publication date.
See "http://www.brooklaw.edu/faculty/news/mazzone_legtimes_2003-11-17.pdf"
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Lee Passey wrote:
Rod Butcher wrote:
I'm still faced with wondering how Wordsworth Classics UK can claim a "presentation of text format" copyright on books whereas Penguin Classics doesn't.
Because some publishers are not troubled by making fraudulent claims. In the United States at least it is not illegal to claim a copyright when there is none in fact, although from time to time there are proposals to change the law. Of course with the Berne convention implementation act no claim is required for copyright to attach (this message, for example, is copyrighted without me doing a thing) so it is best to simply ignore copyright notices, or the lack thereof, and make decisions based on application of local law, such as by looking at the author's date of death, or a books publication date.
I have heard there are also laws against stating a book is by someone if you have made enough changes to get a new copyright. Not sure, I am NOT a lawyer. Michael
--- Rod Butcher <rbutcher@hyenainternet.com> wrote:
Can I get some clarification : I have read the copyright FAQ. Most of the books we deal with here in Australia were printed in the UK. Do the rules apply everywhere, in the country where I am or the country where the book was published ? Jonathan Ingram's post seems to indicate the latter i.e. all books he considers for scanning where he is (UK) must be elligible under UK law, irrespective of where they were published. Hence they have to have been published (effectively printed) more than 70 years ago, no matter where they were published. Correct ?
It's a slightly gray area. I will sometimes scan material for the US DP site which may not yet be out of copyright in the UK -- and it can be very difficult at times to decide whether or not something is out of copyright in a life+X country, particularly when the author is obscure or anonymous, and/or the texts are undated. I'm generally happier, though, scanning material which is definitely out of copyright in both the UK and the US when I'm uploading the page scans to DP. Copyright is a very thorny subject, and it only gets more evil when you mix different copyright systems. The easiest thing to do is to ignore it altogether, but that only works up until the lawyers start sending letters out (as various file sharing systems have discovered :) ). The next simplest thing, as far as content provision is concerned, is to only consider the copyright laws in the country of the server (pre-1923 for DPUS, life+50 for DPEurope). Many publishers slap a copyright symbol on anything they publish, regardless of the validity of the claim. I've seen copyright incorrectly claimed for facsimile reprints of 300 year old texts before. Similarly, if you are reprinting a book containing public domain material which was first published more than 25 years ago, you have no copyright claim over the typography in the UK -- it's only new layouts that get a new copyright. -- Jon Ingram __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ? As I understand it, it is in public domain in the US since it was written before Jan 1923, also here in Australia since the author died more than fifty years ago. But my UK Wordsworth Classics edition has a text copyright notice. How can they do this ? I find a similar copyright notice in other Wordsworth texts, but not in Penguin Classics. Is there some kind of "publisher's copyright" separate to the "author's copyright ?" which means I have to find an edition that doesn't assert any copyright ? Or does UK copyright work differently ? thanks Rod -- http://distributedcomputing.info - find out how to make your pc work for the community
Many books claim copyright when there is none, some only on new cover art, compilation, fonts, intros, etc. I'm not an expert on UK copyright, so I would suggest you check with one, but I am presuming they will tell you that the words of Wordworth are in the public domain, just to be sure you don't use other words, etc. Michael
On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Rod Butcher wrote:
Greetings from Sydney Australia, my first post here. As a literature student who has made use of free online gutenberg texts, I thought I'd like to put something back. I couldn't find George Eliot's Felix Holt and thought maybe I could scan and proof-correct it as my contribution. Then I wondered why has it not already been done , as it is a standard text... is there a copyright problem ?
Felix Holt is available at <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/holt/>, but as a folder of individual HTML files, one for each chapter. Bastards. It's impossible to download the HTML and convert to a PDA-friendly format without a LOT of work. They're protecting their precious little digitization project. The problem with using a modern edition of a dead-tree book is that you can't be SURE that you won't be hit with copyright complaints. The only safe thing is to get a pre-1923 copy of the book and scan it. That's why I have spent WAY too much money at ABEbooks to get safe PD versions of the stuff I scan. -- Karen Lofstrom
Karen Lofstrom writes:
Felix Holt is available at <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/holt/>, but as a folder of individual HTML files, one for each chapter. Bastards. It's impossible to download the HTML and convert to a PDA-friendly format without a LOT of work. They're protecting their precious little digitization project.
Depending on the PDA, you might want to look into plucker, at http://www.pluckr.org/ I download HTML to my Treo all the time, and if it has links from one chapter to the next, you only need to list the first chapter and the number of links you want it to traverse.
participants (8)
-
Aaron Cannon -
Andrew Sly -
Bruce Albrecht -
Jonathan Ingram -
Karen Lofstrom -
Lee Passey -
Michael Hart -
Rod Butcher