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Old 07-23-2011, 11:38 PM   #7
Elfwreck
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcdy View Post
As usual when I plan to submit an epub of a book with perhaps questionable copyrights, I fall back on asking for input at MobilRead.

The book I am planning to work on is a reprint of a 4-part serial in a Street & Smith mag of 1916. The reprint was published in 1975, and lists Street & Smith's copyright and also the 1975 publisher's copyright notice. Although the book's illustrations are new and clearly still in copyright, I don't understand how the publisher can claim copyrights for the text.

Does anyone have enough understanding of US copyright law to help me decide if the text is public domain?
Bob
Very likely, the text is in the public domain and only the formatting and images were copyrighted in 1975. Publishers are fond of putting copyright notices on reprints of public domain texts (open any book of Shakespeare's works for details on how that works).

I don't believe any court case has ever been based on "they copied my updated version with a few different words and different punctuation" when the text itself was in the public domain.
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