I LOVE travel books-I read every travel book I can get my hands on. Recently (and thanks to on-line book stores), I have rediscovered Richard Halliburton, who was a popular author of the 1920’s and 30’s.
Presently, I’m reading his “Seven League Boots”, which details some of his fascinating adventures…the book still reads well, even though it was written 80 years ago. In my opinion, Halliburton is a much better writer that Paul Theroux- his writing is just much more exciting.
Halliburton disappeared in 1938 (he was attempting a solo crossing of the Pacific, in a Chinese junk).
My question: could I take his old books, do a bit of editing/commentary, and re-publish them as my own? The publishers that owned Halliburton’s books are also long out of business.
Would I get in trouble for doing this?
All of his books were published between 1925 and 1935. It’s likely they’re out of copyright (and thus could be republished by you), but you’d be better off talking to a lawyer about it to be sure.
the library of congress I think keeps track of when copyrights expire. There was a change in the law in the last couple of decades which extends the potential length of a copyright beyond the original period but requires action on the part of the CR holder. I think the max period is now 70-90+ years with these renewals.
You should be able to get all the answers you need from the library of congress web site and you should also be able to search copyrights. I did it several years ago for a book on my family’s genealogy since I was interested in converting the rather lengthy volume to digital and adding it to one of the genealogy web sites. But at this point I can’t remember many of the details.
here’s a chart with some excellent information - Copyright Support - Copyright Services - LibGuides at Cornell University
In the US, most works published after 1923 are not in the public domain.
Not exactly. Prior to 1923 = public domain. 1923-1963 = may or may not be public domain. 1963 on == copyrighted.
You would need to know if the copyright was renewed. Given the date that Halliburton disappeared, he certainly didn’t renew it, but his heirs might have. If the book were out of print then, there’s a chance they didn’t bother, but you’d need to track that down.
Let us once again introduce you to Google.
If you do some googling on Richard Halliburton, you will discover that he wrote five books, all of which were recently reprinted by Long Riders’ Guild Press. However, these books were withdrawn.
It took me only a few minutes to discover this, and I don’t even care about the issue.
So, the answer is that you most assuredly will get into trouble if you try to do this yourself.
“Entrusted” is an interesting word. There’s the off chance that Long Riders Guild Press and Princeton are both trying to accomplish what the OP is trying to do, namely, add some commentary to books long out of copyright and sell them themselves. It might be worthwhile to hire a copyright lawyer and do some digging. Of course, it might be prohibitively expense too, but you never know until you ask.
Based upon the years of publication, unless they were renewed they are clearly in the public domain, regardless of any “entrusting”. A large number of people want to pretend they have legal rights to things they don’t own and thus ignore little inconveniences like that, though. If push comes to shove you’d have to prove a negative: that the copyright was not renewed. As RealityChuck says, you’d need to track that down.
Yes.
Because you just made your biggest mistake. You just revealed your innermost ambitions to The Freelance Vigilante Grammar Ninjas of The Straight Dope.
In addition to our Graffiti Syntax Correction Unit, we also police all of popular culture for “misguided attempts to cash in without doing the heavy lifting”. That’d be you.
Now, if you teamed up with an illustrator or photographer and did a coffee table book: “7 1/2 League Boots: A Tribute to Richard Halliburton, Ralph Whatisname, Editor”, we might let that one slide…
Let’s review. A legitimate press with dozens of titles reprinted the books and then had to withdraw them. Books are expensive items. It costs many thousands of dollars to issue a legitimate trade book. Editors, designers, artists, printing and shipping. It must have been an enormous financial hit to lose any chance of making this money back.
And your suggestion is that they did this because Princeton University - not some long lost “relative,” but an ivy league university with a reputation that would have the media crawling all over them - issued a fake claim of ownership?
Seriously?
A quick check of the Copyright Renewal Database shows:
Here’s a link to some other Halliburton entries
it wouldn’t be the first time a major institution of higher learning did something that wasn’t in the highest search for truth because they were interested in money.
All the Halliburton books were never out of copyright. All copyright resides with Princeton University. Those rights have been assigned to a select few. Those that are no longer publishing the Halliburton series were told to stop publishing the works as they were not in public domain.
Seriously. Please re-read what I wrote, as you appear to not have understood it. I did not suggest that either the “legitimate press” or the “ivy league university” to which you refer, did anything wrong. Nor did the OP suggest doing anything wrong. I suggested he investigate it further and consider hiring a lawyer. You somehow find fault with this. And quit your grovelling at institutions with big & famous names, as they’re all out to make a quick and easy buck too.
This is getting fun, zamboniracer.
Here’s what happened in the real world. The Long Riders’ Guild Press withdrew their books from sale once Princeton University made a claim.
To believe that what you’re saying isn’t nonsense you have to believe two things:
one, that the LRGP didn’t bother to check with a lawyer, but took a huge financial loss on a sayso, and
two, that Princeton University made a false claim of ownership.
That’s what you’re saying. You making the claim that the big bad naughty university out of nowhere swooped down on legitimate public domain reprintings and tried to con them - to no apparent gain of any kind - into stopping distribution of these books. And therefore the LRGP is such an idiot that it never even bothered to check any of this out for themselves and didn’t think of going to the extremely expensive attorneys that you want Ralph to hire.
The books are not in the public domain. Princeton does own them. It found out about the sloppy non-research of LRGP and put a stop to their theft of rights.
There are no two ways about this. Either Princeton owns the books or IT DID SOMETHING WRONG BY ENJOINING LRGP. Those are the only alternatives. You are saying the latter. You are making an accusation, whether you understand the words you wrote or not.
Reality doesn’t care how you approach it. It is what it is not. And it is the opposite of what you claim.