Quote:
Originally Posted by zipzip
Here's the thing: Starting in 1959, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books were rewritten. Not just edited, actually rewritten, by different ghost writers than the originals. The U.S. Copyright Office's website shows no earlier date than 1959 for the first in the Nancy Drew series, "The Secret of the Old Clock," or the first Hardy Boys book, "The Tower Treasure." However, these are new works by a different author, retaining only the plot and characters of the 1930 edition. Both say, "New Matter: revision."
So the question is, are these pre-1959 versions of the books out of copyright?
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I believe if the early versions didn't have their copyrights renewed, they're now in the public domain. So if anyone has the original books, those could be re-printed or converted to ebook versions.
Before attempting to take on Simon & Schuster's lawyers, someone should check the exact copyright dates of the originals, and confirm that they weren't renewed 28 years later.
Interesting legal puzzle--I suspect that copyright on "revision" has never been challenged before, at least as far as someone attempting to republish the unrevised version on the grounds that it's so substantially different that the revision copyright was basically an attempt to copyright two works at once: the original and the new one.