Quote:
Originally Posted by LoveMyReader
Hi Everyone, just got a Sony Touch for Christmas and trying to figure out all the ins and outs but I know I love it already! Anyone have any good suggestions for good ebook sites besides the Sony one? And another question, does anyone know how to check to see if a book is copyrighted in the U.S.?
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The Mobileread wiki has lists of other places to get ebooks.
Free ebook listing:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Free_eBooks
Ebook stores:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores
http://www.teleread.org/free-ebooks/ is Teleread's list of free ebook resources.
Copyright in the US is nothing short of psychotic. There's a
ridiculously complex chart for figuring things out; short version:
Pre-1923: Public domain.
1923-1977 w/o proper (c) notification: Public Domain
1923-1963, registered but not renewed 28 years later: Public Domain
Same, renewed: 95 years after publication date. (Which you'll note we're approaching. Expect new lawsuits from MouseCo in the next couple of years.) That's the crucial time period--stuff made through 1963 that wasn't renewed, is now in the public domain. Other than that, the public domain is frozen, and won't see new content (except for gov't docs) until 2018.
1964 -1977, w/proper notification: 95 years after publication.
1978+: "Life + 70" kicks in, for works published with notice. There's some odd differences individual and corporate works, but for practical purposes, we can ignore them. We'll all be dead before Raiders of the Lost Ark is in the public domain.
1989+: Removal of requirement to notify for copyright; after that point, EVERYTHING printed (or "placed in a fixed form") is copyrighted.
To figure out if something was renewed:
Stanford Database. Not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.