August 2005 - PGCanada - lists.pglaf.org

Stats
by Wallace J.McLean 31 Aug '05

31 Aug '05

I've been crunching some numbers on books by authors who died in 1950, and whose works thus became public domain in Canada on January 1, 2001. This is a preliminary sample of what will eventually be a much larger sample of titles. Of 1042 books by such authors, by 2001, only 3.4% were still "in print". ("In print", for the purpose of this experiment, was defined as a work that had been re-issued in the past year, or in any year thereafter, assuming, solely for the sake of argument, that a work that was re-issued in 2005 was still in economic use in every year before. My other model will, eventually, allow for works to come in and go out of print.) Of that 3.4%, 1.0% were "normative" for lack of a better word; republications, translations, and adaptations that are, on their face, authorized by the copyright owner as one of the bundle of rights. The other 2.4% were "special", including audio books and e-texts prepared for the blind and visually impaired, microform research editions, and public-domain-under-US-rules Project Gutenberg editions. At the time of the deaths of the authors of these works, in 1950, only about 12% of their collected works were still in print. That's in year 1 of posthumous copyright. It only goes down from there.

1 0

Public Domain Wizard (beta)
by Wallace J.McLean 30 Aug '05

30 Aug '05

I have developed a Public Domain Wizard, in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, which should (if it works) be able to tell you whether a given book is copyrighted or public domain in Canada. (There's one grey area it will warn you about if you encounter it, and one hellishly difficult sub-area of pre-1924 copyright law which I chose to ignore.) Would anyone like to test-drive?

3 2

Thanks for Project Gutenberg
by Michael Hart 30 Aug '05

30 Aug '05

Here are a few of the thank you notes we have received for you over the past six months or so: This is just a short note to personally say Thank you" for the Gutenberg project. Let me thank you for making Project Gutenberg a reality. I've enjoyed it for many years. ". . .just downloaded [Aristotle's `Ethics.' Again, thank you much for all the work that has gone into your site." Thank you for Project Gutenberg which is really an amazing resource. Project Gutenberg is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Thanks to all of the volunteers, for this great service to humanity. Subject: Just a 'Thank You' for Gutenberg... Hello! The Subject Line says it all... Just a 'Thank You' from someone who (if it wasn't for this project) would never have read a Shakespeare Sonnet. I'm fairly certain I would never have solved the mystery without your "Project Gutenberg" publication. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with this old book, but finding out its "story" has been fascinating. I'm incredibly grateful for your vision and for PG, and I'm an active and prolific contributor to PG through Distributed Proofreaders. Good day to you and to all those that are out there making sure some of us, especially me, benefit from Project Gutenburg. [from Nigeria] I hope that this donation will help your work. Many thanks for your site - it is a treat and I am very pleased to have found it. Thank you so much for your work. This is so great. THANK YOU for all the efforts you've poured in, and all the sacrifices you've made in making Project Gutenberg a reality. I truly admire the accomplishments and goals of Project Gutenberg. Thank you. It's very difficult to have books sent to where I am. I'm grateful to be able to access them on the website! [From Iraq] Thanks for Gutenberg! Keep up your heroic effort! You are my heroes. Thank you for all you have accomplished! It is a great pleasure for me to share all the Best of Gutenberg (with its unidentified "errors") with my family, friends and associates. I use the CDs as my business cards to spread the word about great literature. I have just down loaded some books from the *here goes,* Gutenburg section of the online access for we the blind. Now I'm looking around to see if I can find these very interesting books of which I will thouroughly enjoy I expect. Again, much thanks. At any rate I have signed up to be a proofreader and commend you for the giant you have all created. [Funny, _I_ always thought of PG as tilting at the giants out there.] Please allow me to add my own thanks to this list, Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

1 0

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

I want to recycle another suggestion from the spring, I think made by David Fewer: Rockbound, by Frank Parker Day the public-domain book that won "Canada Reads" on CBC, that sold a quarter of a million copies (under the U of T imprint) in Canada, and which has the added attractiveness of being PD in Canada, but not in the US (at least not under the primary rule.)

4 3

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

Is there a database-ready listing of PG and PG-OZ titles? I'd like something that I can flip into, say, Excel, with Title, author, and pubdate fields, at a minimum.

2 1

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Saturday, August 20, 2005 3:08 am Subject: Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada > > I think that is a wonderful suggestion. > I take it we would need to work from a 1928 edition... > > Andrew It's already up ag PG-OZ...

3 2

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 2:27 pm Subject: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada > Do any of our list participants here feel strongly about what > text(s) would be ideal to start with for PG Canada? I can't think off hand of a particular title, but perhaps the following paramaters should be used: - by a Canadian author who died between 1950 and 1954, inclusive; - published after 1923. Thus, a "life+50" public-domain work that is just "barely legal" for our purposes, and something that is not eligible for including in PG under US rules.

6 9

First texts for PG Canada
by Andrew Sly 14 Aug '05

14 Aug '05

Do any of our list participants here feel strongly about what text(s) would be ideal to start with for PG Canada? Some people attach a certain significance to certain numbers and feel that a "number 1" has a certain importance. Personally, I have no great preference, so I'm happy to just pick some Canadiana text with no formatting difficulties that is already availible to start with. Andrew

4 4

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Lockey <mlockey(a)honson.com> Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 4:43 pm Subject: Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada > IMHO, one of Canada's formost stylists was the almost-forgotten > Globe > and Mail writer, J. V. McAree. His book, 'Cabbagetown Store', > (Ryerson > Press, 1953), and about his childhood, is brilliant, as are his > columns. He did write other stuff, too. He died in 1956; which > would > be as current as we could wish (in a few months). Well, a little over a year: 1956 = CR until the end of 2006. Interestingly, though, that's also when A.A. Milne's works will become PD in that majority of the world that is life+50... which is why I strongly suspect Disney is putting the heavy on so many countries to go to life+70. For them, it's "urgent".

1 0

Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 4:32 pm Subject: Re: [PGCanada] First texts for PG Canada > I can understand your interest in promoting works which have > had the recent privilige of ascending into the public domain, > but to start with, I'm looking to work with a couple > texts that are already availible, to reduce the number of > potential challenges occuring at once. :) In that case, I'd suggest "Book 1" be a batch-accession of EVERY PG and PG-OZ and Rastko text that's PD under Canadian law. And yes, I am volunteering to start doing clearance research on those. (Not alone, but I'll gladly start.)

1 0