This post summarises the guidelines for posting to this forum section. If we all follow them, it'll make life a lot easier. If you have any comments or suggestions for changes, please feel free to make them.

1. This forum section is for book uploads only, the only exceptions being contributions to the "Sticky" topics at the start of the forum. Any message thread that is not an upload will be moved elsewhere or deleted, as the moderators deem appropriate. The moderators of this forum section are currently Alex Turcic and myself, HarryT.

2. When you upload, it would be very, very helpful if you could use a message subject of the form:

Author_surname, Author_firstname (or initials): Book_title. Version. Posting Date

Eg:

Wells, H.G.: The War of the Worlds. v1. 11 Apr 2007

Sticking to a consistent format will make it much easier for people to find things.

3. This format section is only for the upload of Sony Reader LRF-format books. Please don't post any other format here.

4. Please attach your book to the first message in the thread. If you subsequently revise it, edit the first message and re-attach the revised book there, adding a message to the end of the thread to note that you've done so, and saying what the changes are.

5. Uploads should be in the form of either ZIP or RAR archives. The maximum file size for a single attachment is 10MB. (editor's note: some unzipped formats are fine, if you come up with one that doesn't upload, let us know and we may adjust for it)

6. Please respect copyrights, and don't post (or request) anything that's not in the public domain in at least one of the major public domain book collections - eg "Project Gutenberg" (PG) or "Project Gutenberg Australia" - without the clear advance permission of the copyright holder. Any material that clearly infringes copyright will immediately be deleted. Please notify one of the moderators immediately via private message if you believe that an upload does violate copyright.

7. Uploads here should add some notable "value" to a PG (or whatever) original (for example: nice reformatting, artwork, a TOC, footnotes, etc etc). There's really no point in posting here something which which a poster can get from the original source in two minutes.

Thanks!

Editor's Note: copied to the general Uploads Help section so that the info is available where folks will likely look first, made adjustments (without deleting anything) so that it's more suited to general uploads

What is in the "Public Domain?

As you might expect, it's somewhat complicated.

In most of the world, it's pretty straightforward - things enter the public domain (PD) a certain number of years after the death of the author. In most countries that number is 70 years, in a few (eg Australia) it's 50. That means that, for example, all works of authors who died prior to 1937 (as I write this is 2007) are currently PD in Europe; prior to 1957 in Australia, and that advances, year by year, as you would expect it to (eg next year it'll be 1938/1958).

In the US, the rules are rather more complicated, largely due to the political lobbying done by companies like Disney who are desperate that M. Mouse and co should NEVER enter the public domain.

Basically, in the US:

- Anything published prior to 1923 is PD.
- Anything published between 1923 and 1963, with a copyright notice, for which copyright was NOT specifically renewed, is PD.
- Unpublished works: Author's death + 70 years.
- Pretty much everything else: publication date + 95 years (and this date keeps getting extended as the "danger" approaches of anything new entering PD)

The net result of this is that some stuff is in the PD in the US, but not elsewhere (early works of authors who had LONG lives - eg Agatha Christie), and a LOT of stuff is PD outside the US but not in the US (works of authors published after 1923 who died before 1937/1957).

As the years go by, the balance is shifting - what is PD in the US is a static set of works, whereas elsewhere new material is entering the PD every year.

That, at least, is the basics!

What about languages? Are languages other than English allowed/welcome? Shouldn't the language be made explicit in the thread title?

Any language is welcome! If it's not English, please specify in the thread title.

What about things that are publicly available for a period of time? For instance, the public version of the Nebula Awards website (http://www.sfwa.org/awards/2008/NebFinal2007.html) contains links to freely viewable works that have been nominated for the 2008 Nebula Award. I have converted these into an ebook for my personal use, but I'm not sure that I can post it here.

What about things that are publicly available for a period of time? For instance, the public version of the Nebula Awards website (http://www.sfwa.org/awards/2008/NebFinal2007.html) contains links to freely viewable works that have been nominated for the 2008 Nebula Award. I have converted these into an ebook for my personal use, but I'm not sure that I can post it here.

Copyrighted material which is freely downloadable from a particular place must not be reposted without the copyright holder's permission. Very often the owner of the material will wish to retain direct control over its distribution, and won't want it making available elsewhere.

I have been looking over the material at www.archive.org and much of the material in the universal library is NOT public domain in the U. S. Unfortunately only copyright actions from 1978 on are online and for the earlier ones you have to go in person to the copyright office in Washington DC!

However, for those books published between 1950 and 1964 which might be public domain you can check

http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First

to see if copyright was renewed.

My experience was that everything that really interested me had its copyright renewed.

I have converted a file from the e-Sword Bible program (a Topic Note file) that was converted from several html files freely available on the web.
The book is "Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright" published first in 1902 by J. H. Allan.

The web page contains no notice of a copyright. I have the hardcover book published by Destiny Publishers that contains no copyright notice and whose web page is 2 years old.

This is a fascinating account of the "lost" ten tribes of Israel and makes great reading whether you think it history or myth.
Can I upload the lrf book?

I'm afraid that it's your responsibility to ascertain whether or not what you have is in the public domain. It would be a lot clearer if you had used the original HTML sources, rather than extracting them from the "e-Sword Bible program" that you mention. All I can really suggest is that you contact the authors of this program, and ask them whether they have any objections to your redistribution of material from their program.

I'm afraid that it's your responsibility to ascertain whether or not what you have is in the public domain. It would be a lot clearer if you had used the original HTML sources, rather than extracting them from the "e-Sword Bible program" that you mention. All I can really suggest is that you contact the authors of this program, and ask them whether they have any objections to your redistribution of material from their program.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I didn't make myself clear. The file from the e-Sword program is not part of that program and the author of e-Sword has no interest in that file, it simply works under his program as do many other Bible translations, commentaries, dictionaries and other historical writings. This would be similar to someone writing their own recipe for calibre and using it within that program. Kovid has no interest in the recipe other than someone may send it to him and he may choose to use it or not.

I can find no copyright notice on the web page with the book, no copyright notice in the hard-cover book and no copyright notice listed in the e-Sword file. I suspect someone just converted the web page to the e-Sword file.

In any case I will think about it, search a bit more for info on that 1902 work and PERHAPS upload it with the conditions on copyright mentioned in my upload post. From what I have seen so far it is in public domain but this small publisher grabbed the work and produced the hard cover that I bought. Similar to folks printing the KJV Bible. Unless they add their own commentary or something special it is not under copyright. I suspect Tyndale and Cloverleaf do not object:)

If what you have was published in the USA prior to 1923, then you're OK - it's automatically in the public domain (in the USA).

http://www.eternalthroneofdavid.com/jsjb.zip offers this book in html form. They say, "We offered the free on-line book Judah's Sceptre/Joseph's Birthright by J. H. Allen that we compared to as the "Bible" of the Lost Tribes teaching. Now, since the KJV Bible is public domain (free of copyright restrictions like Allen's book)...."

It is in chunks by chapter, it appears, but it seems to be the original without any additions.

Judging from the various web entries, this appears to be the series of beliefs mentioned in No Highway by Nevil Shute....Now if only Shute were available in Sony Reader form, even with DRM. Sigh.

If what you have was published in the USA prior to 1923, then you're OK - it's automatically in the public domain (in the USA).

Yes, those HTML files are the book. Copyright date is 1917, first published in 1902. I will upload it.