Book People Archive

Re: Redeeming copyright


On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Rod Hay <rodhay@[redacted]> wrote:
> There is in the common law, a right to appropriate abandoned property. Could it
> not be argued that a book that has been out of print for a certain number of
> years has been abandoned, and therefore available to all comers.
             
Just a quick response.  No, the law concerning abandoned property does
not apply to any copyrighted work.  If you find a book on a sidewalk
and could not locate the rightful owner of the book, the physical
things of the book (papers, ink, hard boards or cloth, strings and
glue for binding, etc.) are considered as abandoned and you can keep
the book.  But, the invisible thing inside the book known as "work"
such as story, essay, poems, play, etc. is never abandoned unless the
author of the work explicitly dedicates it to the public domain.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo@[redacted]>