Re: OT: Can a book published in 1908 still be under copyright?

On 17/07/06, Chris Peters <beta_leonis@...> wrote, quoting Benct:
> >Can a book published in 1908 still be under copyright, or
> >more precisely, can those who have made a recent reprint
> >claim copyright, except for any material they may have added?
> >FYI the author died in  1939, so by my calculations copyright
> >should have expired in 1990.
Given the author died in 1939 and most major jurisdictions now have
70-years-after-death copyright terms, I think it's safe to say that
actually the work is *still* under copyright. If Benct lives in one
that retains 50-year copyrights, then he may be lucky (tho as Sweden's
in the EU, I think that means that they have to eventually enact
70-year terms, so the work could be recopyrighted). If it was
published (only/first?) in America, that's a different matter; its
copyright will have expired long ago.

As for the relationship between recent reprints and the original, I'm
pretty sure the typesetting/formatting will still have copyright, so
you can't just scan the pages and post the images. But so long as the
text's the same, the reprint doesn't cause copyright to be extended
AIUI, so you could probably scan the text & OCR it.

> I do agree with you that it would probably be in the public domain now.  (Of
> course, I'm not a lawyer -- I just play one on TV.)  But methinks it's still
> a good idea to cite sources out of respect.
Citing sources and copyright are completely different matters. Failure
to cite sources results in plagiarism which is not (I think) illegal
in itself, tho it can cause your career to end, or be considered
fraud, or the like, depending on context. You can cite your source and
still be liable for copyright infringement. For instance, if I
included here the entire content of a book I have handy, but noted
that it who it was by, its title etc. and made it clear *I* hadn't
written it, I would still be guilty of copyright infringement. On the
other hand, citing sources is the difference between "Bananas grow on
trees." and "Jonsson (2006) discovered that bananas grow on trees"
(with a references list describing what "Jonsson (2006)" refers to).

Similarly, in the fields in which citing sources is relevant, a text
is never so old it can cease to be cited, unlike most copyrighted
texts (I think "Peter Pan" has a perpetual copyright in the UK). Even
if it is not under copyright and you quote from it, you must reference
where it came from. And largely, being under copyright cannot stop you
from quoting from it: So long as you're only quoting from it, and not
including more than a reasonable portion.

(PS Chris: It's better to post replies underneath/intermixed with the
original message. It means they're more likely to get snipped once
they're no longer relevant, and makes it easier to see exactly what
you're replying to.)

--
Tristan.

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