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Originally Posted by lumpynose
There's a book on archive.org where the author died in 1993. Other books by the author are for sale from the publisher but this book is not.
What does this mean with respect to its copyright?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lumpynose
Duh, I forgot to say that I'm in the US.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lumpynose
It's unlikely that he had any heirs or an estate. He was gay and died of AIDS and he was living on welfare.
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All of his assets (including copyrights) became
someone's property when he died. If there was no will, a state probate court attempted to identify a next-of-kin and if they didn't find one, the assets went to the state. Whether a person or the state got them, they may have been auctioned off as part of the estate.
The copyright is still valid and somebody owns it, so it's illegal to copy it without permission. Whether the owner is aware that he or she owns it is another question. The publisher might know what happened to the copyright if it's worth it to you to find out.