(US specific) 80% of books published 1924-63 allegedly in public domain

[leebase]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

You wrote changing both title and author.

Authors (and reporters) get professionally dinged for plagiarism.

Not all violations of laws are crimes, some are civil. In fact, some copyright infringement is civil, not criminal.

Once the copyright is over....the public owns the material. You can do with it anything you want.

That's the law. IANAL

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by leebase

Once the copyright is over....the public owns the material. You can do with it anything you want.

That's the law. IANAL

Anything? Does that include claiming copyright?

(I don't have time for this, so don't interpret lack of response as change of mind.)

[leebase]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Anything? Does that include claiming copyright?

(I don't have time for this, so don't interpret lack of response as change of mind.)

Fun fact, if you do make changes....your work is then protected by copyright. The base story is still not....but “your” version would be.

[Quoth]

"Authors (and reporters) get professionally dinged for plagiarism."

That's separate actually from Copyright, though it often violates copyright. If you simply edit sex, name & places in a book, retitle it and put a different author name, all without explaining source then even out of copyright, it's plagiarism. Passing off someone else's work as your own.

However if it's out of copyright, or you have permission from the rights holder, then it may not be plagiarism if you CLEARLY acknowledge the source and explain the value of what you are doing and the reason for it.

Regular tricks of publishers to renew copyright are:
New Illustrations
Different layout and/or font*
Update LSD to metric £ & p.
Update popular culture references.

(* Thus a straight copy breaks copyright, you'd need to OCR and proof to get back to original text. This is why CURRENT editions of say the King James Bible are copyright even though the actual content is not copyright).

So if you take a public domain textfile, mobi or epub, proof it, reformat and publish you have the Copyright on the new ebook. If you take it and update language, change title and put yourself as Author with no reference to source then it's plagiarism, even though original was out of copyright and you have valid copyright on the new edition.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by leebase

Fun fact, if you do make changes....your work is then protected by copyright. The base story is still not....but “your” version would be.

Like Disney and Snow White. They put those names on the dwarves. So not just the animation is copyrighted, but any version of the public domain story with the Disney names violates Disney copyright.

I saw a range of princess dolls. The maker used the ORIGINAL names in the public domain stories and on each box it says which story (and collecting author approx date) they are from. Otherwise they'd be sued out of existence by the greedy Disney machine. Actually they looked more realistic girl shape and nicer costume than Hasbro / Mattel / Disney.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

This is why CURRENT editions of say the King James Bible are copyright even though the actual content is not copyright.

Outside the UK, the King James Version of the Bible is out of copyright. Inside the UK, reproduction of the KJV is restricted by Royal Prerogative. Only those people authorised by the Crown may reproduce it.

[doubleshuffle]

So if someone from outside the UK uploaded the KJV to the MR library - would you be allowed to download it in the UK?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

So if someone from outside the UK uploaded the KJV to the MR library - would you be allowed to download it in the UK?

No.

[pwalker8]

Here in the US, Ken Burns latest documentary, Country Music, just aired on PBS. It's a great documentary, btw, his best IMPO. To the point of this conversation, for those who dismiss public domain, it shows how various artists built on previous artists works, not only covering old tunes, but taking old tunes and giving them new words to create new songs. An example of this was two big hits from the early 60's. The first was a song by a male singer using the tune from an old Carter Family hit from the 30's. The second, was a rebuttal of the first song, using the same tune but with different words.

An example of minor change for a new copyright is the song Will the Circle Be Unbroken, where someone had come up with a new verse. The original is in public domain, but the new verse is under copyright.

One approach to copyright that is used in music, that I wish books would use is that you can get a blanket permission in music, i.e. a music publisher might get blanket permission for their artists to cover songs on albums. Thus, you don't have to go to each and every song writer to get permission to sing a particular song on an album. You of course have to pay a royalty to the copyright holder, but you can record it however you like.

Johnny Cash covered Nick Cave's song "Mercy Seat" on one of his American albums (that's the name of the albums series, btw). After listening to Cash's cover, I listened to the original. I suspect that listening to them, most people wouldn't identify them as the same song.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Here in the US, Ken Burns latest documentary, Country Music, just aired on PBS. It's a great documentary, btw, his best IMPO. To the point of this conversation, for those who dismiss public domain, it shows how various artists built on previous artists works, not only covering old tunes, but taking old tunes and giving them new words to create new songs. An example of this was two big hits from the early 60's. The first was a song by a male singer using the tune from an old Carter Family hit from the 30's. The second, was a rebuttal of the first song, using the same tune but with different words.

An example of minor change for a new copyright is the song Will the Circle Be Unbroken, where someone had come up with a new verse. The original is in public domain, but the new verse is under copyright.

One approach to copyright that is used in music, that I wish books would use is that you can get a blanket permission in music, i.e. a music publisher might get blanket permission for their artists to cover songs on albums. Thus, you don't have to go to each and every song writer to get permission to sing a particular song on an album. You of course have to pay a royalty to the copyright holder, but you can record it however you like.

Johnny Cash covered Nick Cave's song "Mercy Seat" on one of his American albums (that's the name of the albums series, btw). After listening to Cash's cover, I listened to the original. I suspect that listening to them, most people wouldn't identify them as the same song.

Johnny Cash also covered the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. I actually like his version better. Pain just seeps out of his version.
Apache

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

Johnny Cash also covered the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. I actually like his version better. Pain just seeps out of his version.
Apache

Yep. The video that goes with that song is just heart wrenching. I remember when it first came out and how many people told me "you just have to listen to this song". Cash also did a version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" that was almost a dirge. Just incredible.

Just think where we would be if musicians treated copyright like authors do. Of course songwriters really love getting those royalty checks. In the documentary, two situations were mentioned.

Many may not know this, but Willie Nelson was a song writer well before he became known as a singer. He once offered to sell the rights of a song he had written to a well known country singer for $500. That singer said, "No, I'll loan you the $500, I'll record it and you get the normal royalties". It became a bit hit. Nelson's first royalty check was for $14,000. That was a lot of money back in the 60's.

Ricky Skaggs once covered an old Bill Monroe song on one of his hit albums. Bill Monroe came up to him an told him "I got the royalty check the other day. It was so much, I was able to pay my land tax and have a bit left over. Feel free to record any of my songs you want."

[doubleshuffle]

That's why so many musicians just used to lift old folk and blues tunes, write a line or two of new lyrics (I think fiddling with the arrangement was also an option) and claimed publishing rights.

[leebase]

Well....isn't not like Disney just did a string replace. They took a story and created a movie. A movie script is a separate work effort than a book. Then you have all the animation, etc. etc.

A rapper who lifts a rift or beat from an older song, is still creating a new song.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yep. The video that goes with that song is just heart wrenching. I remember when it first came out and how many people told me "you just have to listen to this song". Cash also did a version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" that was almost a dirge. Just incredible.

Just think where we would be if musicians treated copyright like authors do. Of course songwriters really love getting those royalty checks. In the documentary, two situations were mentioned.

Many may not know this, but Willie Nelson was a song writer well before he became known as a singer. He once offered to sell the rights of a song he had written to a well known country singer for $500. That singer said, "No, I'll loan you the $500, I'll record it and you get the normal royalties". It became a bit hit. Nelson's first royalty check was for $14,000. That was a lot of money back in the 60's.

Ricky Skaggs once covered an old Bill Monroe song on one of his hit albums. Bill Monroe came up to him an told him "I got the royalty check the other day. It was so much, I was able to pay my land tax and have a bit left over. Feel free to record any of my songs you want."

That was because when you sold a song back then the person that bought was credited as the song writer. Willie sold a number of his songs that became hits and he did not even receive credit as the song writer.
Apache

[Ladyrixx]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

For books, the standard has always been that the text itself is either public domain or copyright, and the response to that has been to add forewords, introductions and so forth when doing new editions.

If you stripped the formatting and non-essential markup and remade the ebook you should be in the clear (but this not legal advice, and I am not your lawyer, just a layman's understanding of copyright).

This would be why the "plain" version of the novelization of Metropolis is free, but the one that doesn't have formatting that makes your eyes bleed is $3.