question about copyright / public domain (Frigyes Karinthy)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MsAnthrope

I have a different question about copyright/public domain. This may have been answered in another thread, if so..I'm sorry.

Looking through Kindle books on the Amazon site, I am seeing books for sale that are in the public domain (found on Gutenberg, ManyBooks, etc).

Is this legal? Should I quit my day job and start an 'e-publishing' house for pd books?

Certainly it's legal - have you never seen a work by William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens in a bookstore?

You can do anything you wish with a work that's in the public domain, including publishing it, selling it, etc.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

back to my own topic (), the present day István Farkas has very kindly replied to my mail to tell me that no, not only is he not the Farkas in question nor even a member of his family, but in fact he had never heard of him until i wrote ("Zelda Pinwheel : reuniting hungarian translators with their long lost, probably dead homonyms, since 2008"... that's my new tagline, yo). he does not personally have any idea when Farkas One died, however he did give me the email address of the Press, PR and Marketing Manager for the hungarian publisher who published the book, as well as the email address of the copyright agency. I have now written to both of these.

Fascinating! Please do keep us informed!

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by MsAnthrope

Is this legal? Should I quit my day job and start an 'e-publishing' house for pd books?

Yup, it's absolutely legal. Once works are in the public domain, anyone can legally use them for any purpose, including commercial ones.

However, if you'll look next time you're in the bookstore, those PD books are usually priced a good deal lower than more recent stuff. The exceptions there will be ones which include a lot of literary supporting material (footnotes, explanations, commentary, etc.), in those cases the extra price covers that material.

If you want to start your own e-publishing house for PD books go right ahead.

[MsAnthrope]

Duh..never thought about Shakespeare or Dickens being public domain. I guess it really opened my eyes being able to compare free (donation-supported) websites vs. for-profit booksellers for books. When only pbooks were available the choices were buy it or borrow it.

I have conflicting feelings about this subject and the long-term effects of buying public domain books from a bookseller.

I do agree that special editions or ebooks that took extra effort on the publishers part require payment.

Thanks for turning on the light bulb for me..
Also, I have no plans on quitting the day job anytime soon..

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

let me tell you, if it turns out this work is in the public domain, i will upload the ebook, and every last one of ye better read it.

Yes'm ma'am. After I read it, will you take your curse off me??

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by MsAnthrope

I have conflicting feelings about this subject and the long-term effects of buying public domain books from a bookseller.

Theoretically, all they're charging for is their cost to print, bind, and deliver the book to the store.

As for the long-term effects ... this has been going on for decades -- I think we've seen any long-term effects we're likely to.

I'm more concerned with the long-term effect of ebooks on bookstores, myself.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Yes'm ma'am. After I read it, will you take your curse off me??

oh, i won't curse anyone unless i actually get permission (or some concrete evidence that it's in the pd) to upload the book (don't hold your breath). so no worries there. besides, some notable exceptions* aside, "empty threats" would probably be more my style.


*whole different sack of knots. but i might take my curse off you someday. we'll see.

[NatCh]

I've long regarded all threats as empty: I figure if they were going to really do it, they wouldn't mouth about it, they'd just carry them out. It's the approach I follow anyway, and why I always make a point of making my own threats patently ludicrous.

For instance when I was working a couple of summers at a youth camp during college (11~13 year olds), I'd threaten to glue their cheeks together, wait a moment for them to draw the obvious conclusion, then inform them that I didn't mean those cheeks. Then I'd follow up with: "in front."

They never took it seriously, of course, but it usually diverted them from whatever they were doing that I wanted them to stop, and that was the whole point.

[Greg Anos]

Easy Zelda and Nat. Just teasing off of one of Zelda's posts...

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

curse you, ralph sir edward ! and all the rest of ye ! my reading list was already probably too long to reasonably fit inside one lifetime, and now look what you've done.

i really think i will have to quit my job, and do nothing else, but read. (oh, the torture )

on that note, i'm going to bed (to read...) now.

[NatCh]

I'm adding "a whole different sack of knots" to my list of colloquialisms.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I'm adding "a whole different sack of knots" to my list of colloquialisms.

i am honoured to enrich your collection. i probably have a few more lying around somewhere, if you're interested. for instance, in the same circumstances, i could have said "it's another pair of sleeves." i love colloquialisms too.

i'm still going to keep the glue far away from you, just in case. although there is something you have to admire about a threat that is "patently ludicrous." maybe we could start a list of those as well.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i am honoured to enrich your collection. i probably have a few more lying around somewhere, if you're interested. for instance, in the same circumstances, i could have said "it's another pair of sleeves." i love colloquialisms too.

I shall unabashedly steal that one too -- that's how I get all my best material you know.

Most of mine have a decided "country" flavor, mostly "American" Southern and Texan, so they tend to be a bit earthy.

Here's one of my favorites, it's properly applied to folks who are perceived as not doing the job they should be doing:

"They're just standin' around with their teeth in their mouth."

[NatCh]

I've copied these posts to a new thread in the Lounge entitled "Colloquiallisms [threatens to be Unutterably Silly]" -- let's continue this discussion there, so we don't hijack yet another thread.

We now return the rest of you to your previous discussion of copyright questions.

[zelda_pinwheel]

since i'm sure all of you have been refreshing this thread impatiently (and in vain) every 5 minutes for the past 2 weeks, here's the latest news, still hot from the presses :

i've just received a mail from the person i contacted at Corvina Press letting me know that she is still waiting for a reply from her colleague, and will let me know as soon as she has some information.

there may yet be hope...

[zelda_pinwheel]

i have received yet another reply in the saga of my quest to determine the copyright status of the book by Karinthy :

Dear Ms. K,

the name "István Farkas" is rather common in Hungary. In order to find the correct one in our database, we would need some more personal data (like date of birth, pseudonyms, etc.), or otherwise unfortunately we cannot help you in your query.

Best Regards,


Péter Tóth
--
Dr. Péter Benjamin TÓTH
legal counsel
Society Artisjus Hungarian Bureau
for the Protection of Authors' Rights
H-1016 Budapest, Mészáros u. 15-17.
HUNGARY
Tel: (+36-1) 488 2636
Fax: (+36-1) 212 1544
web: www.artisjus.hu
e-mail: ptoth@artisjus.com

and my reply :

Dear Péter Toth,

I thank you for your kind reply. Unfortunately, the information you request from me is exactly the information I was hoping to obtain from you, so it seems we are at an impass. I don't know anything about this István Farkas except that he translated Frigyes Karinthy's novel "Please, Sir !" into english, and I would like to know whether this book is in the public domain or not (which depends on the date of death of the translator).

If any information about this particular book comes to your attention, I would be very grateful if you could communicate it to me.

Best regards, and thank you again for your time,

A K

it would seem my quest has arrived at its profoundly frustrating end, and no doubt legally, since the doubt remains complete, i should abstain from creating an ebook and uploading it here. after all, better that a brilliant work / author should fall into complete obscurity, within a century of their death, than to risk infringing the highly dubious but nonetheles possible but absolutely unverifiable copyright of the translation. right ?

again, i say that if ever there were an argumant in favor of reforming copyright / orphan works laws, this case is it.