Amazon selling a pirate edition of Clifford Simak's "City"?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BenG

E.E. Smith's "Triplanetary" is the same. The free PG version is the story as it was published in the pulps. The copyright was never renewed for this version.
Later, he revised it a little to tie in with his Lensman series and released it as a book.
The same with his "Skylark of Space", the free versions are the pulp versions.

Skylark he also updated in the early 60's to make reference to modern nuclear tech and Einstein. I love how he addressed the speed of light limit.
"It looks like Einstein's theory was wrong."
Unfortunately, he didn't do the same for the rest of the series.

Lensmen doesn't have the same issues with tech anachronisms because most was written post-Einstein and he reworked Tri-planetary to add the Prologue sections (Atlantis, WWIII) for its book edition in the 50's.

[QuantumIguana]

If the short stories had entered the public domain, that might explain the publisher's reluctance to explain how they have the rights, they might not want people to realize it is public domain, and that they could just get it for free.

One of the one-star reviews claimed it was a priate copy because it didn't Simak's introduction from the 1972 edition. But this actually strengthens the publisher's claim, if they had pirated it, there would have been no reason not to include his introduction. But if the short stories are public domain, the introduction to the 1972 version would still be under copyright, and thus they couldn't include it.

[cromag]

The same edition by the same publisher is available at Fictionwise. I have no idea of its status, but pirated copies usually get taken down pretty quickly. A take-down notice usually gets prompt attention.

Questions about this copy's legitimacy have been bouncing around on the internet for almost a year now -- at least, that I've found.

[starrigger]

I seem to have bought this, because I have it in my Calibre library. Not sure where I bought it, maybe Fictionwise. Here's what the copyright page says:

Gate Way Publishers
www.gate-way-publishers.com
Copyright ©
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.


Pretty nonspecific, but that may reflect incompetence rather than piracy. No listing of original publication dates, etc.

Here's the TOC in the ebook:


CONTENTS
Dedication
EDITOR'S PREFACE
NOTES ON THE FIRST TALE
CHAPTER 1
NOTES ON THE SECOND TALE
CHAPTER 2
NOTES ON THE THIRD TALE
CHAPTER 3
NOTES ON THE FOURTH TALE
CHAPTER 4
NOTES ON THE FIFTH TALE
CHAPTER 5
NOTES ON THE SIXTH TALE
CHAPTER 6
NOTES ON THE SEVENTH TALE
CHAPTER 7
NOTES ON THE EIGHTH TALE
CHAPTER 8
AFTERWORD
* * * *

I think it's the same content as in my old Ace paperback (which has no Contents page).

My guess is that it's legit, but clumsy. But that's only a guess.