TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘copyright ghosts’ Category

By Paul Biba

Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing this out. Public Domain Day was January 1, 2009. On that day many works entered the public domain in many countries around the world. Here is the story from publicdomain:

It is January 1st, which means that this morning at midnight a batch more “life-plus” copyrights expired in those countries — most of them — where copyright expires at the end of the Nth year following the death of the author.

Yes, folks, it’s Public Domain Day! And it’s international! There are little Public Domain Day virtual commemorations going on in places like Poland and Switzerland. Spread the word!

In the life+50 universe, which constitute the largest cohort of countries, including Canada, which collectively have the majority of the world’s population, life-plus copyrights expired at midnight for those authors, or last-surviving of multiple authors, who died in 1958. Some notable life+50 entries into the public domain include life+50 copyrights for authors such as:

Australian politician (and sheep breeder) James Guthrie (“A world history of sheep and wool”)
American film composer Edward H. Plumb (“Bambi” and many other Disney films)
American hymnist George Bennard (“The Old Rugged Cross”)
British painter and illustrator Lucy Kemp-Welch (the original edition of “Black Beauty”)
American screenwriter Jack Henley (“Bonzo Goes to College”)
American writer J. P. McEvoy (“Dixie Dugan”)

(more…)

Posted in Paul Biba, copyright, copyright ghosts, public domain | 2 Comments » | Read more..

By Robert Nagle

You may remember that I was raving about Dorothy Scarborough’s 1925 novel The Wind a while back. Here’s a public domain 1920 essay she wrote for Harpers.

Guess who needs a one year subscription to Harpers?

Update: I guess the point of this post was not clear. Harpers has graciously put public domain works online, but is charging people money for it.  Those who control the access also control the public domain. The fact that Harpers would put this essay on the website and simultaneously refuse access to it unless you paid for it is both hilarious and sad. Boo Public Domain! Horray for capitalism!

By Robert Nagle

Perhaps Mickey shouldn’t be smiling.

Remember the copyright-related mischief in Washington, D.C., that kept The Great Gatsby and many great works from making it into the public domain for now? Corporations such as Walt Disney lobbied for the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, popularly known as the Mickey Mouse Act—intended to protect the rodent, among other Disney properties.

Last week, however, Lawrence Lessig at Stanford University Law School reported that a unanimous 10th Circuit Court decision about copyright extensions might reopen another legal challenge to the law.

“In a unanimous vote, the Court held (PDF) that the ‘traditional contours of copyright protection’ described in Eldred as the trigger for First Amendment review extend beyond the two ‘traditional First Amendment safeguards’ mentioned by the Court in that case. It thus remanded the case to the District Court to evaluate section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (’URAA’) under the First Amendment, which removed material from the public domain.”

Opt-in vs. opt-out copyright system: New legal climate

Lessig continues: “In Golan, the issue is a statute that removes work from the public domain. In a related case now on cert to the Supreme Court, Kahle v. Gonzales, the issue is Congress’s change from an opt-in system of copyright to an opt-out system of copyright. That too, we have argued, is a change in a ‘traditional contour of copyright protection.’ Under the 10th Circuit’s rule, it should merit 1st Amendment review as well.

“I suspect this decision will weigh heavily in the Supreme Court’s determination whether to grant review in the Kahle case (PDF).”

See an earlier background report on the Kahle case and the most recent information.

Less cheer from Google’s William Patry

Meanwhile William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google, provides a less sanguine opinion about the recent decision:

“But, Eldred did state that First Amendment scrutiny might be appropriate if copyright legislation ‘altered the traditional contours of copyright protection,’ 537 U.S. at 221, and that’s how the Tenth Circuit spent the remaining 21 pages of its opinion. Of course, one might lose even if the contours were believed to have been altered, and that’s what the remand is about. (more…)

By Robert Nagle

I am not a lawyer. But every time I reach a point in my understanding of copyright law where I feel as though I finally understand it, something comes up that makes it clear I don’t know nuthing.

When did this feeling of helpless incomprehensibility first come about? It was probably when I realized that Americans will be traveling in space elevators before they can legally post an mp3 of Andrew Sister’s Bei Mir Bist du Schon (1937) on a website. (Current estimates are that we may even have space elevators before it will be legal to sing the 1893 song Happy Birthday in public). I guess we will have to consult Lawrence Lessig or William Patry about the legality of singing the Warner-Chappell song inside a U.S. built space elevator.

But another legal can of worms involves the use of images for Wikipedia (and its sister projects). It has implications that reach far beyond U.S. borders. (more…)

By David Rothman

E-books for kids: Where to find ‘em—modern titles, not just public domain books alone

Bend away! PVI’s flex e-paper is on the way! Maybe final versions by mid-2008

Sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle: Scribd.com deserved a DMCA takedown notice

Illustrated Sony primer for newbies—plus more FBReader basics

Free Internet Public Library will answer your queries, via site or human help

Gizmo alerts: Fujitsu T2010 Tablet PC, iLiad woes, AlphaSmart word-processors

Jane’s warnings to e-book authors: Heed even if you’re just a reader

Let the meteors fall where they may? The pitfalls of Jon Evans’ publishing scenario

SFWA issues mistakenly broad DMCA takedown notice—unwittingly harming sci-fi writers such as Cory Doctorow

Meanwhile don’t forget to scroll below for today’s TeleBlog posts.

By Bill McCoy

Google, Others Contest Copyright Warnings, in the Wall Street Journal, notes a pending complaint that the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) , a trade group in which Google, Microsoft and others are members, is filing about copyright notices that, according to the CCIA, misled users by not noting legitimate fair-use reproduction rights.

What Google’s role, if any, in the complaint is not entirely clear, but it certainly seems ironic that Google is being associated with this complaint, at the same time as they are putting putting highly misleading notices on scanned public domain works.

Supposedly “essential” watermark

The Google notice, found as page 1 on downloadable PDFs of public domain works available via Google Book Search, “asks” users to:

Make non-commercial use of the files. We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes…Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

There is clear U.S. precedent that scanning a public domain work does not create a new copyright so there seems to be absolutely zero legal basis for restricting use or forcing users to preserve inserted per-page watermarks-cum-advertisements. (more…)

By Robert Nagle

I spent Sunday downloading lots of PG texts and converting things into the e-book format of choice at the moment (Mobipocket). A month ago my eBookwise broke, so I had to redownload everything into a usable format. I encountered some difficulties with manybooks files (see my earlier post about Manybooks vs. Project Gutenberg).

Poetry poses unique challenges. Sometimes the ASCII text files of PG destroys the stanzas and indents; sometimes the small size of the PDA breaks lines which shouldn’t be broken (This happens even with the more recent html versions being produced by PG).

I recently found out about the American Verse Project which, in addition to having several complete poetry collections, lets you view a book as a single web page. That’s the key thing for easy e-book conversion. I was now easily able to download poetry by Carl Sandburg, Phillip Freneau, Phyllis Wheatley (pictured above), Vachel Lindsay and others. The key is making sure to click the View Complete Text on the right side of the page. (This is all courtesy of the power of TEI). (more…)

By Chris Meadows

Found via BoingBoing:

Stanford University has opened an on-line copyright renewal search database, covering the period from 1923 to 1963 when preventing a work from passing into the public domain required renewing its copyright registration. Prior to this database, there had been no easy or inexpensive way to search renewals for this period.

This database will assist both prospective publishers of orphaned works and public domain scanning groups such as Project Gutenberg.