As you know from this thread, I’d like to make an underwater housing for a camera. Interestingly, I was able to obtain a booklet called How to Build Your Own Underwater Camera Housing. How convenient!
The booklet has 72 pages, and contains general instructions for construction of the housing and its controls. There are photos int he back that show various cameras in housings: 16mm, 8mm, Polaroid, 35mm. This might be a good book for people to see.
If Toggweiler is dead (which I assume he is) and Dive-Rite no longer exists, is it permissable to reproduce this out-of-print booklet on a webpage so that others can benefit from it?
Not necessarily. Since the book was published w/ copyright notice in 1962, the first term is 28 years. (The life or status of the author didn’t matter back then.) That takes you to 1991. But if the author renewed his copyright, he would get another 67 years. You can check with the Copyright Office to see if the registration is still good. I believe they have an electronic database available on-line.
Okay, the booklet was copyrighted in 1962, which is before 1978. So the copyright wouldn’t have expired until 1990. If the copyright was not renewed, then the booklet should be in the public domain. Right?
InTransit: I used your link to look up “Toggweiler” and the title. There was one “Toggweiler” returned when I searched for that text, and it was not Mart; nor was the book HtBYOUCH. The title search did not turn up this title.
No. The opposite is true. Since the copyright was still in effect in 1978, the term was automatically increased.
The key phrase is this: “The Copyright Act of 1976 extended the renewal term from 28 to 47 years for copyrights that were subsisting on January 1, 1978.” The copyright did subsist (i.e., exist) on 1/1/1978, so it was automatically extended at that time.
I would be very interested in seeing that book. I’m using an old Sony MPK-TRA housing with a cheap Hi-8 sony knock-off camera, but would like to get something more akin to the simple cylindrical housings made by Halcyon, etc. Incidentally, one other book you should look into is Vince Harlow’s “Dive Light Companion” (www.airspeedpress.com).
Housings by themselves are very simple devices. The complex part is creating controls which will interface correctly. This may not be necessary, though. I can use a newer digital camera in my housing, but the LANC codes are incompatible. No matter - just turn the camera on, set the focus to infinity and use it like that. I don’t really find a need for zoom and other functions, but them I am not a practiced videographer.
RealityChuck: I’m reading it differently. The text says “extended the renewal term”, not that it’s automatically renewed. In any case, it was not eligible for renewal until 1990. Here’s some more text:
So copyrights that were enacted between January 1st, 1964 and December 31st, 1977 would automatically be renewed; but this booklet was published in 1962.
So the way I’m reading it is this: The copyright existed on 01-Jan-78, which made it eligible for a 47-year renewal; but the copyright was not automatically renewed.
Wrong. Johnny L.A. reads it right. Anything copyrighted under the '09 Act needed to be renewed after the first 28 year term expired. The '76 Act (and, since then, the Bono Act of, um '98 IIRC) simply extended the length of the second term, iff the creator decided to invoke it.
The fact that the writer is dead has no effect on the status of the copyright. Like any other property, intellectual property can pass by gift, devise, or sale (within certain limitations). The author may have mentioned the copyright in his will, for instance.
In other words, the procedure and process of constructing this housing is not protected, only the man’s description is. If you were to rewrite the booklet, you’d be in the clear.
NOTE: I’m not a lawyer, but this is the same concept that applies to recipes. Lists of ingredients and the procedure for cooking them aren’t protected under copyright, only the descriptions accompanying them are…
So you’ve made some reasonable good faith efforts to determine the copyright status of the work with no hard results. It’s a small work of limited commercial value but some historical interest (which, of course has no bearing on the legal issues at stake).
IANAL, but I’d say put the thing on the Web, reproducing the copyright statement, and with a disclaimer explaining your efforts to track down the work’s status and assurances that if the copyright holder contacts you with objections you’ll remove the work immediately.
If the work is not in the public domain, you will, technically, be violating its copyright, but IMO the chances of any serious action being taken against you is pretty small. The worst that’s likely is that you’ll get a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer for the copyright holder. And even that’s not terribly likely.
If you want to be safer, only reproduce a few of the more interesting pages, as opposed to the whole book, which should give you a reasonable “fair use” claim. But remember, IANAL!
The pamphlet was published with notice, i.e. with the copyright symbol. P is date of publication, 1962 in this case. P + 56 means that it will stay in copyright until 2018.
Johnny L.A., you’re reading the act incorrectly. Note endnote 6 on the government’s Copyright Law page about the 1992 amendments:
[/quote]
Copyrights secured before January 1, 1964, shall be governed by the provisions of section 304(a) of title 17, United States Code, as in effect on the day before . . .[enactment on June 26, 1992]
[/quote]
The issue of making copyrighted but out-of-print works available comes up all the time. It would be wonderful if many of these works were once again available, but the fact remains that for the OP to do so is completely illegal, no ifs, ands or buts.
Exapno Mapcase
I’m still not seeing where I’m reading it incorrectly. From your link:
Since the booklet was copyrighted in 1962, according to § 304 its copyright would have expired in 1991 (28 years after the next January 1st after the copyright was granted). I don’t see where copyrights gtranted in 1962 are automatically renewed. I only see that works are eligible to be renewed.
Which is suggested in your other link:
Since this booklet is of limited interest, and since technology advanced significantly between 1962 and 1990, I think it’s doubtful that this booklet was “properly renewed”. If it was not (and as I said, I could turn up nothing on it at the link provided by InTransit), then it seems to me that it is in the Public Domain.
A work whose copyright was secured before January 1, 1964, needs to have its copyright renewed after 28 years, otherwise the work enters the public domain. The copyright is not automatically renewed for a second term.
A book whose copyright was first secured in 1962 would be eligible for a renewal in 1990. The U.S. Copyright Office’s website has a database of all registrations and renewals from 1978 onward. There is no Mart Toggweiler listed as an author, nor the title How to Build Your Own Underwater Camera Housing. Therefore, the work is in the public domain.
Works whose copyrights were secured between January 1, 1964, and December 31, 1977, automatically have their copyrights renewed for a second term.
As for Mart Toggweiler, he may be the Martin Toggweiler who was born in Pennsylvania circa 1917, and who lives today in Signal Hill, Los Angeles Co., California. Especially likely because the book was published in nearby Long Beach.
I thought it likely he was dead, since he looks like he was in his 40s in the booklet and that would put him, today, near 90. But he may still be alive? Where did you find that information?
Johnny L.A.: According to Ancestry.com’s all-name index to the U.S. census taken in April 1930, there was only one Mart— Toggweiler living in the U.S., and he was a 12-year-old who was born in Pennsylvania. I did not find him in the Social Security Death Index or the California death index, so I guessed he was still alive. The Ultimate People Finder at KnowX.com had two Martin Toggweilers living in the U.S., one in Redwood City, California, and the other in Signal Hill, California. The search engine at US Search told me that the Martin Toggweiler in Redwood City was 39 years old (too young), but that the Mart(in) Toggweiler in Signal Hill was 86 years old.
A glance at Signal Hill’s location at Yahoo Maps confirmed that it is next to Long Beach, where the book in question was published. If you want his address and telephone number, look up Mart Toggweiler in an on-line telephone directory like Switchboard.
PhilAlex: My understanding of international copyright conventions is that no country is obligated to recognize a copyright for a longer term than it exists in the work’s original place of publication (assuming that no Canadian edition of the work was published). My brother is an intellectual property lawyer, and I will ask him.
I didn’t mean that the US was required to respect Canada’s longer copyright. Fr’instance, Peter Pan has an eternal copyright in the UK, but it’s PD in other countries… the US being one of them.
So, someone could run off a few copies in the US. But, if someone bought a copy and hoofed it for England, who is at fault?
The real problem is with a lot of people who are republishing stuff of questionable Public Domain status on the net. So, if someone in England bought an E-book of Peter Pan on the net, ONLINE, they would be breaking the law.
Now. to what level is the “republisher” required to go? Block all England IP’s? England Credit Cards?
It’s an interesting question. Oh, and BTW: Disney’s Peter Pan has a “NOT FOR SALE IN ENGLAND” stamped on it. That may be enough, but I don’t have Disney’s Law department.
Didn’t explain myself there, fully.
Still, if the author wanted to make your life, ah, troubling, he could.