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Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - Paul F. - 06-25-2008
As I think I've mentioned before, I do a monthly newsletter for my Gun Club.
An occasional contributor (one of very FEW contributors other than me who writes content for the newsletter) has expressed interest in excerpting a chapter from an "old gun book" for the newsletter.
The book in question was published in 1944 (so it is NOT in the "public domain" as I understand the law).
The publisher apparently no longer exists (at least as Google understands it).
The book has never been reprinted (which would complicate the issue with a "modern" publisher in the mix).
So I'm wondering about several factors;
First- is one chapter (about 40 pages) out of an 812 page book considered "fair use" to excerpt for printing in a non-profit newsletter?
The second would be;
If one chose to respect the copyright of such a work, how would a person go about FINDNG who holds the rights on a work where the author is long dead and the publisher (apparently) went under in 1949?
Appreciate opinions, info, etc.
(and yes, I could have found a forum that specializes in Copyright issues, but I'm fairly sure some folks here can answer such questions from personal experience sufficient for me to then follow up that knowledge... ).
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - M A V I C - 06-25-2008
is the org an actual non-profit. or does it just not make money? Are their ads in the newsletter? how many people get it? how do you know them?
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - karsen - 06-25-2008
http://www.publaw.com/fairuse.html
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/C3E49F67-1AA3-4293-9312FE5C119B5806/310/276/240/ART/
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - Paul F. - 06-25-2008
MAVIC;
We're a non-profit club, but I don't know if we are legally classed as a "non-profit" for tax purposes. (that's a question I should ask our Treasurer...).
No commerical ads in the newsletter.. only non-commercial "for sale" and "wanted" ads by members (only). Our circulation is 225 copies. Members and some (30-ish) courtesy copies to local government, some police agencies who use the range, etc.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - JoeH - 06-25-2008
Don't know if there is a standard for "fair use" by non-profit use like you are describing. For education use, we use a figure of 10% or one chapter here at the library I work at. As for finding the rights holder, there are a number of clearance operations around that can research that for you. We use Copyright Clearance Center. Depending on the original publisher, the different copyright clearance databases may already have entries for the successive holders of rights. If not held by a later publisher, the rights may have reverted to the author or his estate.
Now, since this was published before 1978, its copyright period was 28 years. The copyright could be extended, but someone would have had to file the application paperwork to do so in 1972. Without a copyright statement in the book, it would have automatically expired since it was published before 1964. Everything published after 1964 had its copyright automatically extended to 95 years by a law enacted in 1992, no copyright statement is needed if it was also published after 1978. if you want to investigate yourself to see if the copyright was renewed, here is some information on doing that, http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ22.html.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - Mr Downtown - 06-25-2008
Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut answer in these situations, which I'm sure frustrates nonlawyers. On the one hand, you have the rather small chance that some successor in interest to the original publisher might want to claim a copyright interest. On the other hand you have the various technical factors cited by JoeH, and you have the various mitigating factors (being done by a nonprofit, tiny circulation, no profits likely to come from the republication, attempt to research the copyright status, fair use factors).
I am not offering you legal advice, but I'd take the risk.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - clay - 06-25-2008
my question---are you really going to excerpt the entire 40 pages of the 1st chapter for your newsletter? How many pages is your newsletter usually? Seems like a lot to be adding to a newsletter-type mailing. Not to mention the added print and postage costs. And who is going to either type or scan all that stuff into electronic format?
Seems like this guy would be better advised to choose a couple of the best paragraphs and use it as a teaser for folks to check out the book if they want more.
let us know what you do.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - Paul F. - 06-25-2008
Karsen;
Good links!
If I follow those guidlines, my plan would probably not be considered "fair use".
JoeH;
Great info! Thank you.
Especially the "Copyright Clearance Center". Unfortunately, it appears that this work has/had no ISBN, so the CCC doesn't have a record of it, but I may pursue it.
Mr Downtown;
I wouldn't presume to take official "legal advice" on an internet forum :-)
I am leaning towards "do it anyway" also, but wanted to try some more leg work first.
It appears that given the age of the work, unless the copyright was extended, it may BE in the public domain. But it will probably not be easy to tell for sure.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - Paul F. - 06-25-2008
Clay;
Excellent questions! Those are the ones I answered for myself FIRST, before bothing to consider the copyright issues.
It's not the first chapter of the book, it's a chapter that can stand on it's own (an account of the 1930-something national trophy rifle matches by a shooter).
The newsletter is normally 8-12 pages. I would add a sheet of 11x17 to the newsletter for the duration of the series. I have been running "under budget" for the newsletter for 3 years since switching printers, so the Club's board has no problem adding a page for good content.
Mailing costs would remain the same until I pass 4 more sheets of 11x17.
I was planning on printing 4-6 pages per issue until the series is concluded. This would be in the August through January issues, which are historically harder to fill anyway, and so I would have the "extra" room.
The member whose idea it is would be doing the scanning, editing, and typeing... otherwise I would't bother (I write several match reports a month for the newsletter anway, and wouldn't want to saddle myself with that big a series).
I've thought these things through before arriving at the copyright hurdle :-)
[quote clay]my question---are you really going to excerpt the entire 40 pages of the 1st chapter for your newsletter? How many pages is your newsletter usually? Seems like a lot to be adding to a newsletter-type mailing. Not to mention the added print and postage costs. And who is going to either type or scan all that stuff into electronic format?
Seems like this guy would be better advised to choose a couple of the best paragraphs and use it as a teaser for folks to check out the book if they want more.
let us know what you do.
Re: Violating (print) copyright law... your opinions, if you please. - MacMagus - 06-25-2008
Three suggestions:
1. Check the Copyright Office database to see what else the author and publisher have registered and at what addresses.
http://www.copyright.gov/records/
Unfortunately, the online records only go back to 1978. To search beyond that you'd need to be/know someone who has access to the Library of Congress where searches may be done in person (almost anyone can get a library card for the Library of Congress) or you could pay a fee to have a staff-member search their catalog for you.
But if the author was prolific, he's probably got works registered in the "modern" catalog.
...
2. Go to a physical LIBRARY and check their catalog for works published by the same guy and see if you can find another publisher or address for him. You may need help from a reference librarian to do this, but most local libraries now have the ability to search the catalogs from other libraries, including colleges that often keep collections of oddities such as old "old gun books".
...
3. Finally, why don't you submit the name of the author, the book and the publisher HERE? Some of us are probably better at Googling than you are and hiding that information when you're ostensibly performing a diligent search is not being responsible.