[bksvol-discuss] Re: Public domain

This is very interesting, Tony, and I thank you for
providing the information.

I'm curious -- how do you happen to know all this? Is
your line of work related or is it curiousity? Or
annoyance at the system (smile)?

Cindy


- Tony Baechler <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi.  Umm no, not really.  The author or estate
> doesn't earn royalties on 
> out of print books.  I would guess that 80-90% of
> books go out of print, 
> especially after 95-120 years from the author's
> death.  This is exactly 
> what I'm so upset about.  Publishers have convinced
> you and most other 
> people that yes, we really do need longer and longer
> copyright terms, even 
> though the author doesn't get a penny for his work. 
> This is even more true 
> if the publisher holds the rights.  At least if the
> author holds the rights 
> as most do nowadays, they can pass it on to their
> estate and the estate can 
> get it reprinted by a different publisher.  However,
> in most cases none of 
> that happens.
> 
> It used to be that the standard copyright term in
> the US was 14 years and 
> could be extended another 14 years.  In the 1970's,
> both were changed to 28 
> years.  Now, it is a flat life plus 70 years for
> living authors and 95-120 
> years for dead authors and books published after
> 1922 in which the 
> copyright was not renewed.  Actually, from 1949 on,
> the copyright doesn't 
> need to be renewed because I think that falls into
> the 120 year 
> category.  From 1923-1949, it gets complicated
> because if the copyright was 
> not renewed in that time, it is public domain but if
> it was I think it gets 
> 95 years protection.  Yes, this is very confusing
> and convoluted.  You can 
> go to the PG site and read the FAQs to get more of
> an overview on this, or 
> there are more detailed books etc.  Just for
> completeness, all books 
> published in 1922 or earlier are now public domain,
> so no one has any 
> rights or ownership of them.  I can do anything I
> want with a public domain 
> work.  Note that the above only applies to written
> works.  It does not 
> apply to sound recordings.  Also it is not the same
> as trademarks.  You 
> can't copyright a word but you can trademark it. 
> Trademarks fall under a 
> completely different set of laws.  For those who
> don't know, the PG site is:
> 
> http://www.gutenberg.org/
> 
> 
> 
> At 08:21 PM 3/14/2005 -0800, you wrote:
> >Yes, I agree that it doesn't seem right to have
> >different lengths of time before books et al are in
> >public domain. But longer periods undercopyright
> >protect the author and the author's estate. I think
> >the reason for longer ones is because, at least in
> the
> >U.S., the copyrights can be extended once or twice
> --
> >I don't remember (and didn't check -- sorry, Tony,
> >I'll leave that for you, smile). This allows the
> >author and his/her estate to continue to earn money
> >from his/her creative work.
> 
> 
> 
> 


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