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Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
Okay. I can see that I'm really too uninformed on this topic to contribute anything to this discussion. I can see that you have a lot of knowledge on it, however. Hope you keep sharing it with us.
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I am not a lawyer, and most of what I know about is from helping scan books and magazines for Distributed Proofreaders. I think there may be some types of copyright renewals that were not scanned and digitized by DP/PG, but in general, if you don't find a renewal in the Stanford copyright renewal database, and it's a novel published before 1964, it's probably in the public domain. In general, I think paying the Copyright Office to research a renewal is probably only done when someone is getting sued. Unfortunately PG went to clarify their rules after some stories/novels from SF magazines didn't show up in the renewal database, and they were still in copyright because the greater work, or renamed work that they were incorporated into had their copyright renewed, and they've never published the updated rules.