----- Original Message -----

From "D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> Date Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:54:15 -0800 To gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org Subject [gutvol-d] Re: gutvol-d Digest, Vol 6, Issue 27

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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.

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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.

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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,

Honestly, just confirming the death dates for most authors tells you

I am only considering copyright in the original, pre-humous, untranslated edition of any of the works on the list. 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.