Quote:
Originally Posted by cmbs
have to search for a current copyright on each individual book to be sure it hasn't been extended. I believe Gutenberg does this
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Indeed. PG needs a copy of the title page. If the book was published in 1922 or prior it's in the public domain in the USA.
Please mind that PG only takes in consideration USA's law.
PG's ebooks can be read by everyone
living in the USA. If you live elsewhere you need to check if the book is in public domain in your own country.
A book published in the USA in 1920 from an author who died in 1950:
- can be published, redistributed, downloaded and read in the USA (i. e. by/from PG);
- can be published, redistributed, downloaded and read in Canada (i. e. by/from MR)
- can not be published, redistributed, downloaded and read in the European Union.
Copyright laws are hard to understand, complex, different from country (countries tend to disagree in what concerns copyright law).
@ cmbs: I am a lawyer with a pos-graduation in copyright law. You can certainly pay me 200 dollars per hour so that I can write up some guidelines for MR.
If a book in the public domain in Canada but it is not in the public domain in the US (where you live), you CAN NOT upload it to MR under US law but MR CAN certainly publish it