You may remember this post on how a lot of science fiction was showing up in the public domain at Project Gutenberg (which was picked up by SF Signal, Io9, etc.).
Well, Greg Bear and Astrid Anderson Bear, his wife and daughter of Poul Anderson (whose works were among those put up by Project Gutenberg), are saying that Project Gutenberg screwed up:
After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and precedents, we have demonstrated conclusively that PG was making incorrect determinations regarding public domain status in many, many works that originally appeared in magazine form. The Poul Anderson estate has been able to get one work, “The Escape”, that PG had firmly declared to be public domain, removed from their site. PG’s original reasoning was that since the magazine it appeared in had never actually filed for copyright, the work was unprotected. “The Escape”, printed in 1953, was the first half of Anderson’s well-known novel BRAINWAVE, which was published and properly copyrighted the following year.
However, even if ‘The Escape” had not been published as a novel, it would have remained under copyright protection until 1981 (28 years) and been eligible for copyright renewal. Authors of that era, and Anderson in particular, were very aware of the need to renew copyrights, and typically meticulously kept their copyright protections up to date. Copyright law for works created more recently is much easier: life plus 70 years. (Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998).
(snip)
In general, Project Gutenberg is doing a tremendous service by making available texts that have truly long since fallen out of copyright, but they are clearly overstepping their original mandate. They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection. Authors and estates need to aggressively take back what belongs to them.
I would imagine that Project Gutenberg may very well be hearing not only from the estates of Philip K. Dick and Leigh Brackett, but from lawyers for the still-very-much alive Frederik Pohl, Norman Spinrad and Jack Vance…
Tags: Frederik Pohl, Greg Bear, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Norman Spinrad, Philip K. Dick, Poul Anderson, Project Gutenberg, Science Fiction
[…] wife Astrid Anderson Bear (daughter of Poul Anderson, some of whose works were among those put up) Project Gutenberg has made a mistake: ‘After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and […]
> They are not merely exploiting orphan works
People blabber on and on about this. Given that many scholars believe that the basis of US copyright law is to give an economic incentive rather than to defend a moral right to control, one could only _praise_ those brave souls who try to keep these works from disappearing totally off the radar.
As long as they are prompt to respond to valid claims from suddenly appearing rights owners, of course. It’s a pity that the DMCA didn’t also give “safe harbor” to exploitation of orphan works.
Project Gutenberg is not based in the USA.
The law cited – the “Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 1998” – is not valid outside the USA. The DMCA referenced by RonK is also US law, and also not relevant.
Copyright law applies where the copy is made, not where the original was published.
Jim
The original Project Gutenberg is/was certainly based in the United States, however there are branches and affiliated sites around the world. Due to differences in copyright laws, some works are copyrighted in the US but public domain elsewhere, or public domain in the US but copyrighted elsewhere. In such cases these works are only offered in those countries where they are in the public domain.
All that said, the many copyright extensions of the 20th century were clearly unlawful and constitute an uncompensated taking from the public. However, due to the lack of public knowledge at the time they were considered “uncontroversial”, and the courts have not upheld the law, and have allowed these illegal laws to stand.
In recent years the public has come to understand how insane modern copyright law is, but the government continues to do what it wants to do – and screw the public.
A reasonable copyright term would be 5 years from original publication. I’d be willing to allow this to be extended to as much as 30 years under some circumstances. The current law is unlawful, tyrannical, and absurd.
“[S]ome works are copyrighted in the US but public domain elsewhere, or public domain in the US but copyrighted elsewhere.” – Alan
In that case the solution is (at least conceptually) easy… make the content available only where it is public domain.
If it is not public domain in the US due to draconian laws then then too bad for them, but there are people in the rest of the world too you know.
[…] som kan anses vara allmän egendom (public domain) som finns i biblioteket. Naturligtvis sker det misstag ibland, men det är en huvudregel att det inte ska finnas någon kommersiellt priviligium kvar. Man […]
[…] Via Slashdot and Lawrence Person’s Futuramen. […]
Wow it shocks me that people are so willing to take other work.
Mr. Bear I have read a few of your works and really liked them and I do agree that it is wrong to take these works if they are still protected under copyright.
I would like to say that I have some real problems with a lot of the current ebook business.
1. I want more books. There is no reason for any book to ever go out of print again. I had the hardest time finding a copy of Anvil of Stars! with EBooks you don’t have printings so there is no reason for them not to be available.
2. Price. Ebooks should cost under two dollars. There is no printing costs, no shipping costs, and no warehousing costs. You have no returns ore stripped books and no used book stores. If I can not sell it when I am done, if I can not give it to a friend if I can not lend it to a friend I shouldn’t pay as much.
I will not take others work without paying because I feel it is immoral but these problems really do bother me. I have no problem with paying the author for his fine work. But at the same time I really do feel that I am being ripped off by the publishers.
Oh and please write another book in the Darwin series and the Forge of God series. I would really like to know what happened to mankind.
And yes I will buy them just make sure they come out on the Kindle.
I’m a chef. Yesterday I made an omelet for a customer. Wish I could get paid for the next 60 years for making that omelet.
A man walks into your restaurant, takes a holographic photo of your omelet on another customer’s plate, leaves without paying, and eats the duplicate omelet outside. Eventually, you lose your job creating omelets. Impossible? Not for writers. We don’t get an hourly wage. But if you’d like to individually compensate the writer at, say, ten dollars an hour, for the time necessary to create a novel, I’m sure many writers would be happy to discuss the matter with you.
And if your omelet lasts sixty years… Wow.
“Information wants to be free. Also, omelets want to be free.” — Dr. Trollpumper von Sheissewerfer
“You can feed a man an omelet, but if you teach him to make his own omelets, then you’ve put yourself out of work.” — Confuciornis
“Hell, not even shitbags are free. Have you priced them at Costco recently?” — Chauncy Gardener
P.S. Thanks to LWATCDR for his kind words. I do wish books could be cheaper! But over at Gutenberg, legitimately scanned classics ARE free. And in libraries as well. Often what our complaints come down to is convenience and flexibility in our modern reading experience. And I’m with you on that as well. However, there ARE folks out there who would exploit features that make reading more convenient… and start sending out pirated editions across the globe. They’re the ones impeding progress and complicating matters, not the authors themselves.
With apologies to Mr. Bear –
Taking rather than an omelet, let us say my mother’s hand made pottery.
I benefited from my mothers selling of it at the time, but she had to craft each individual piece as a separate work, rent a kiln, fire them – and then sell them.
We will grant for the sake of argument that you like Astrid more than you like me – {G}.
Setting that aside for the moment, why are my children less worthy to continue benefiting from my mothers work seventy years after she passes away than your children are their grandfathers?
Jonnan and Fester — perhaps a clearer analogy is this: If Fester wrote a cookbook detailing his secrets for making omelets, he and his heirs should be able to benefit from that under the terms of copyright law — presently life plus 70 years. Or if Fester established a chain of omelet restaurants, Fester’s Fine Foods, he should be able to collect a percentage of the profits for as long as the business stays open — and pass that interest on to his heirs.
Jonnan, same thing. If your grandmother wrote a book about her pottery, or if she established a business based on her designs and techniques, you should be able to benefit from that if she chose to leave you her interest in those properties.
If my father had handcrafted books and sold them individually, I would not be expecting to make any money off resale of those books. In fact, authors make nothing off the sales of used books, and never have — unless they own the bookstore.
Hey, where’s the Jack Vance at Project Gutenberg? The last I knew there wasn’t any.
Sjambak:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30002
Thanks. I missed the posting notice for this one.
“..it would have remained under copyright protection until 1981 (28 years) and been eligible for copyright renewal. Authors of that era, and Anderson in particular, were very aware of the need to renew copyrights, and typically meticulously kept their copyright protections up to date.”
First I am not an attorney, so I could very well be wrong, but…the publication of “BRAINWAVE” might be irrelevant, otherwise a copyright owner could add additional material to a work to extend copyright ad infinitum (add a sentence every 70 years and copyright the entire work again). IF the first half was not copyrighted then it wasn’t copyrighted, using it as part of a work later allows the entire work to be copyrighted but doesn’t grant retroactive protection to the first half alone. As an example, the recent zombie novels based on public domain works are copyrighted as a complete work, but the original public domain sources are still public domain despite making up more than half of a new copyrighted work.
17 USC 304. Under the law in effect before 1978, copyright was secured either *on the date a work was published* (emphasis mine) or on the date of registration if the work was registered in unpublished form. Copyright attached when “The Escape” was published in 1952 making the publication of “BRAINWAVE” technically irrelevant, though one could forgive Gutenberg for not wanting to spend time and money defending that position in court.
The fact that Mr. Anderson was aware and typically meticulous is likewise irrelevant, either he had a copyrightfor this specific work in 1952 and filed an extension, or he didn’t. Are there any records of the copyright being extended for the original work, without regard to the publication of “BRAINWAVE”?
I am not being contentious for no reason, I am just trying to show that this is a complicated and difficult area and rather than “wholesale kidnapping” Project Gutenberg may have simply made an error. Or in this case perhaps they didn’t if there is no record of an extension being filed, the work may very well have fallen into public domain in 1981.
Astrid –
“If Fester wrote a cookbook detailing his secrets for making omelets, he and his heirs should be able to benefit from that under the terms of copyright law — presently life plus 70 years.”
Well, that’s not exactly correct, either. I assume that the main value of his cookbook isn’t the beautiful prose in which it is written, which is the case for most cookbooks, but rather the factual instructions of the recipes themselves. Anyone would be free to post one of Fester’s recipes on the net, as long as they don’t use his exact language.
It might be sticky if they post _all_ of the recipes (and only those recipes), especially if organized in the same way as in the cookbook — Fester _could_ attempt to claim copyright on the _organization_ of the recipes (or their selection).
Your father, may he rest in peace, was one of my favorite SF authors in my youth. Between my brother and I, we must have bought “Operation Chaos” in paperback at least three times. For this reason, my _moral_ compass doesn’t budge at all from “OK” when I contemplate downloading (not P2P) a digital version of that particular book, even though I understand that this would be illegal. I’m curious as to your and Greg’s opinion on this question — I have a feeling you probably disagree.
For the record, I’ve paid Baen Books for digital versions of physical books I own even though I know I could get them for free, but I mainly do this to reward them for their innovative stance on DRM and freebie marketing, and in the hope that they will eventually provide digital editions of rare works which cannot be obtained elsewhere.
Sven, a copyright creator can’t add a sentance every 70 years and keep copyright ad infinitum, unless he stays alive ad infinitum — and we’re not there yet. Currently, copyright dies 70 years after the creator does. End of story. Parts of a work previously published are protected by the copyright on the new item. Gutenberg did make an error, and did eventually own up to it and pull the work. They also say they are changing their procedures for determining copyright status. We’re trying to make other people aware that Gutenberg is not an infallible arbiter of copyright status.
Ron K., a cookbook was perhaps a bad example. You are right, one could take all of Fenster’s recipes, or Julia Child’s, or anyone else’s, write new instructions and publish it as one’s own work. One could, legally, but it wouldn’t be morally right. But let’s say Fenster’s book, “Breaking Eggs”, has a few recipes but is mostly his account of his hardscrabble life pecking his way to the top of heap of omelet makers? Why shouldn’t he be able to pass the benefit of that creative work on to his heirs? And I see you do not question his right to pass on an interest in his thriving restaurant chain.
I appreciate that you enjoyed my father’s work enough to buy Operations Chaos in multiple copies. New or used? If new, on those subsequent copies, the printer made money, the publishing company made money, the cover artist made money, the bookstore made money, the shipping company made money — why shouldn’t the author make a little, too? If it’s a commercially created electronic version, you’d be paying a bit for proper formatting, marketing, website, server . . . again, why shouldn’t the author make a little, also?
Let’s say you bought the Beatles albums when the first came out. And again then they went to 8-track. And again when they went to CDs. Now that they are on I-Tunes, are you going to pirate them because you’ve given enough money to the Beatles? Or are you going to recognize that value is added when a work is converted to these various formats, and support the companies that are doing this work — and also pay a bit to the creators of the works that are making this business possible? If you’d had the foresight to record the Beatles off the radio in the 60s, and the equipment to do it, you could have put those songs into various formats over the years, for your personal use. You can still scan the text of Operation Chaos, correct the scanning errors, fuss with the formatting, and upload it to your e-read device for your personal use, or wait until there’s a legitimate ebook edition, which will probably run about five bucks.
I appreciate that you’re supporting Baen Books, and they are doing a great job of reprinting Poul Anderson. Should everyone decide to only get free e-books, they wouldn’t be able to do that.
> Parts of a work previously published are protected by the copyright
> on the new item.
Only when the new item is not considered a derivative work. The Escape/Brainwave was a very strange case. You really need to talk to a lawyer that specializes in copyright. Really you do. Most of the time when you republish, it’s either a derivative work that only gets a copyright on the new matter, or it’s a simple republish that gets no new copyright at all.
> We’re trying to make other people aware that Gutenberg is not an
> infallible arbiter of copyright status.
Of course they’re not. They can make mistakes like any one else. Anyone commercially publishing should be doing their own due diligence and not taking anyone else’s word for it.
Mr. Weeks is the individual who scanned and posted most of the works on Gutenberg which are in contention here. If he can cite the language of the law, and refer to later rulings to solidify his case, I’m willing to consider his point of view. But nobody at Gutenberg has ever cited actual case law or other legal decisions to back up their claims.
They have now amended their policies based on our research, after initially insisting repeatedly that we were ignorant of copyright law.
Copyright law is not complicated. It is remarkably simple. By posting a copyright notice, a work in whole or in part is protected; when later revised editions are issued, substantially the same in text (and renewed in a timely manner), the earlier versions are also protected, else they could be printed by someone other than the writer, in competition with later editions. Any text so similar that to reprint it would be tantamount to plagiarism are, logically, and factually under the law, protected.
It’s simple, Mr. Weeks. There are no casuistic gotchas in copyright law. We have cited actual case law to prove our points.
> Mr. Weeks is the individual who scanned and posted
> most of the works on Gutenberg which are in contention here.
Actually I’ve not posted anything to PG. I did clearance work and handed scans off to someone else (www.pgdp.net) to turn them into proofed texts at PG. If they really do still have copyright protections they should not be in the PG archive. I’m not the person you have to convince though to remove them. The court of public opinion isn’t who you have to convince either, but you have chosen to bring it there.
> We have cited actual case law to prove our points.
From all observable statements you have made you have not actually talked to a lawyer at all. It’s a lot more complex than you seem to think.
When looking at the copyright status of a work you cannot look at just the wording of the current copyright law. You have to look at the law at the time the original copyright was secured as well as the law during the life of the copyright. It has been changed many times over the last 50 years. The U.S. Copyright office published documents to make this easier for non-lawyers to understand. You have apparently not read any of them either. It feels a lot like willful denial to me.
This is taken from: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf This is a publication of the U.S. Copyright Office, as you can see from the URL.
Mandatory Renewal
Works originally copyrighted between January 1, 1950, and
December 31, 1963. Copyrights in their first 28-year term on
January 1, 1978, still had to be renewed to be protected for
the second term. If a valid renewal registration was made
at the proper time, the second term will last for 67 years.
However, if renewal registration for these works was not
made within the statutory time limits, a copyright originally
secured between 1950 and 1963 expired on December 31 of
its 28th year, and protection was lost permanently.
This document is only 4 pages. You should read it.
From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15.pdf
note: If a copyright originally secured before January 1, 1964, was not renewed at the proper time, copyright protection expired at the end of the 28th calendar year of the copyright and could not be restored.
From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Also known as a “new version,” a derivative work is copyrightable if it includes what copyright law calls an “original work of authorship.” Any work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship is a derivative work or a new version.
A typical derivative work registered in the Copyright Office is a primarily
new work but incorporates some previously published material. The previously published material makes the work a derivative work under copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must differ sufficiently from the original to be regarded as a new work or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify a work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and formatting are not copyrightable.
This document is only 4 pages as well. You should read it. When reviewed PG’s interpretation is that The Escape/Brainwave isn’t an original publication/derivative work, but a single publication event that was spread across two years. That’s why they pulled it. Brainwave has a valid renewal. This doesn’t apply to any of the other works.
From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.pdf
No law will restore protection to works that fell into the
public domain. However, the North American Free Trade
Agreement Implementation Act (NAFTA) and the Uruguay
Round Agreements Act (URAA) may restore copyright in
certain works of foreign origin that were in the public
domain in the United States. Under the copyright law in
effect prior to January 1, 1978, copyright could be lost in
several situations.
It’s only 12 pages and most of that is how to get the Copyright Office to do the searches for you.
Most of this doesn’t matter for new works created under the current life+x system that has been in place since 1978, but it does matter for works that secured copyright under the old 28+28 system.
Oh, you should probably see this as well. It’s the current law, but this hasn’t substantially changed.
From: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#103
(a) The subject matter of copyright as specified by section 102 includes compilations and derivative works, but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
Also when talking about renewals, a renewal is a specific filing type with the copyright office, it’s not simply a filing for a new copyright on a republication using the same name.
From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15.pdf
Let’s expand our investigation to other postings by Mr. Weeks, who is listed as “producer” on nearly all these works. Can Mr. Weeks explain why he posted THE BIG TIME by Fritz Leiber, when it is clearly copyrighted as a novel and renewed in a timely fashion? TRIPLANETARY by E.E. Smith, copyrighted by Smith and renewed by the Smith estate after media adaptations of the Lensman series? CODE THREE by Rick Raphael, copyrighted as a novel and renewed? And we’re just getting started here. Mr. Weeks’ theory of public domain status hinges solely on the nonfiling or nonrenewal of the MAGAZINE ISSUE COPYRIGHTS for these serialized works. The Goodis ruling invalidates all of these postings. So Mr. Weeks is now hunting for new theories? Please. Are we going to assume Gutenberg will be posting works by J.R.R. Tolkien soon (not copyrighted in the U.S during the 1950s)? Frank Herbert (magazine serialization of DUNE novels and other works)? (And if not, why not? Let’s add in L. Ron Hubbard!) We are not idiots. Mr. Weeks cannot be relied upon to understand copyright law. And Gutenberg is not the Library of Congress or a court. To assume superior judgment and deny the jurisdiction of LOC and courts of law is arrogance, to say the least.
CITE CASES. Making new law or applying legal judgments to existing property ex cathedra is a dangerous game.
Just a brief note regarding omelets — recipes themselves are not copyrightable. Not even a little bit.
Nor are (say) dress designs.
This explains the lack of good omelet recipes and dress designs in the world, of course.
(Books full of recipes are copyrightable as creative collections, but the recipe itself — nope.)
Just a brief note with regard to recipes — they can’t be copyrighted. A *book* of recipes, as a creative collection of facts, may be, but a recipe can’t be.
Lots of other things can’t be copyrighted — dress designs, for example. For a complete discussion of these issues for the modern reader, see Jessica Litman’s DIGITAL COPYRIGHT. As an author myself, I sympathize with authors, and have dealt with infringers, but the shift in the international copyright regime over the last half century is a ultimately going to be judged as a vast cultural mistake. (Where “ultimately” may be anywhere from 100 to 1000 years from now.)
It’s not my theory.
GO TALK TO A LAWYER!
“The Big Time” by Fritz Leiber.
First published in Galaxy Science Fiction in the March and April 1958
issues. From the renewal for the Lloyd Biggle
story, the original filing number for March 1958 is B00000688347.
From the renewal for the Clifford Simak story, the original filing
number for April 1958 is B00000692860. RE0000430629 is for the later
1961 expansion into a novel with “Basis of Claim: New Matter:
rewritten and rev. version with at least 50% new material.”
In case you can’t tell the difference, that means the book publication is a derivative work of the magazine publication. This is the normal case for works where the author revises the work for the book publication. You did read the quote of the law I posted concerning derivative works didn’t you? If the author doesn’t do any revisions then the work does not get a new copyright.
There aren’t any renewals for Triplanetary. There’s a new filing in 1982 TX0001492354 with Basis of Claim: New Matter: “additional text & editorial revisions.”
The book publication of Code Three renewed RE0000646091 with Basis of Claim: New Matter: compilation and approx. 35% of material.
It was a fix up novel from three shorter works published in Analog. That renewal makes it clear that the novel is a derivitive work of the three shorter works. It does nothing to affect the copyright in the earlier published shorter works.
A good book by the way. It doesn’t have the impact that the novelette has by itself though.
> And Gutenberg is not the Library of Congress or a court. To
> assume superior judgment and deny the jurisdiction of LOC
> and courts of law is arrogance, to say the least.
You have a profound mis-understanding of how copyright works in the U.S. Since you will not believe what anyone else tells you about it, you really NEED TO GO TALK TO YOUR OWN COPYRIGHT LAWYER. You obviously didn’t bother to read any of the material at the Library of Congress that I gave you links to.
Now I understand why Greg Newby’s standard response is to tell people to go talk to a lawyer.
Astrid:
> Why shouldn’t he be able to pass the benefit of that creative work on to his heirs?
Everyone’s moral (as opposed to legal) conception of copyright is different. I personally believe that copyright is a compromise society makes in order to encourage creative people to create works which enrich society when they fall into the public domain. In this light, the long term of copyright as it stands today seems to be a mistake. This is quite different than, for example, the thriving restaurant chain which you posed as an analogous example. The running of a restaurant chain provides employment for various people and provides a valuable service to society for as long as it is active, whereas an excessive copyright term, which does little to encourage creation of extra works compared to a more reasonable term, only restricts society from reaping its full benefit from created works.
Do you believe that your father wouldn’t have written his books if he had expected the copyright on them to only last 56 years from publication? Oooops, I guess we know the answer to that for at least _some_ of his books, no? It makes me doubt that he only decided to write the books after the new law came into effect in 1978 _because_ he thought he (and you) would make more money because of the new system (I’m actually curious to know if I am correct in this assumption, and you are the ideal person to ask, I suppose).
> again, why shouldn’t the author make a little, also?
We did buy the books new, along with many others which your father wrote, and I sincerely hope that your father was given his part of what we paid, then.
I daresay that your reply seems far from expressing moral indignation that I would consider downloading the book (which I still possess in paperback, BTW) and reads more like the “think of the artists” argument, albeit a much more believably sincere one than when used by RIAA.
Another point I’d like to address is your apt observation that currently for me to digitize my copy of Operation Chaos I would have to do significant work and therefore it would be worthwhile for me to pay for a digitized version. From a practical point of view I totally agree with you, and if a DRM-free version were to appear for a reasonable price I would surely consider buying it. However, from a moral (and legal!) point of view, my right to digitize the book is _totally independent_ of the amount of work it requires to do so, and I find that this rather undercuts your argument.
The last point I’d like to address is your statement that “Should everyone decide to only get free e-books, they wouldn’t be able to do that”. I think that in some ways you are correct, in that the digital public domain and the vast range of free ways to spend one’s time and be entertained are going to eventually be enough competition with original creative works that their value will decline relative to their value today. On the other hand, I firmly believe (and am a personal example) that if people see value in something, even something they can obtain for free, they will be willing to pay for it — but I agree it won’t necessarily be as much as they might be willing to pay if they had no choice.
You and Greg might find the following essay on copyright interesting: you can find the PDF link at http://laboratorium.net/archive/2009/04/17/the_ethical_visions_of_copyright_law …
Greg Bear: “Copyright law is not complicated. It is remarkably simple.”
Hmm, Greg, could you explain, then, how Patry managed to write a 5,500 page treatise on it, for which institutions are willing to pay over $1000? (“Patry on Copyright”)
Really, that has to be one of the most ridiculous statements I’ve read about copyright law since I started to become interested in the issue, seven years ago.
From: http://www.dml.indiana.edu/pdf/dml-copyright-duration-report.pdf
Identifying works in the public domain under American law has become enormously
complex, and yet identifying those works can be crucial for the success of the DML and other
digital libraries. For nearly two centuries of copyright law, the matter was largely a
mathematical calculation based on the date of the work’s publication. Today, the
determination of whether a work has entered the public domain depends on a myriad of facts
and the application of an array of statutes. In many cases, the quest will simply be
impossible; the needed facts are outside the reach of the investigator. In other cases, the quest
may be possible, but the burden of securing the needed information will be so great as to
outweigh the importance of the resolution. In other instances, the needed facts might be
vague and elusive, and the investigator may simply be utterly unable to reach a conclusion
about the status of a work with a satisfactory degree of certainty.
Simple huh.
from: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
The copyright in a derivative work covers only the additions,
changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in
the work. It does not extend to any preexisting material and
does not imply a copyright in that material.
One cannot extend the length of protection for a copyrighted
work by creating a derivative work. A work that has
fallen into the public domain, that is, a work that is no longer
protected by copyright, can be used for a derivative work,
but the copyright in the derivative work will not restore the
copyright of the public-domain material. Neither will it prevent
anyone else from using the same public-domain work
for another derivative work.
@ LWATCDR: http://www.manybooks.net It’s where I find great free ebooks for my Android. Not because I don’t like paying for ebooks, but because the Digital Restrictions Malware on officially purchased ones makes the versions the pirates have that much more attractive and I don’t wish to go down that road. Especially since, as a writer of lyrics and fiction, I rely on copyright (which should be shorter, BTW) myself.