Book People Archive

Re: Foreign publication prior to 1923 and public domain

Sorry for the late reply.

On Sept 14, Bruce Albrecht wrote:

> I've wondered why books printed in the UK prior to 1923 are often 
> not considered PD by Google and its associates in the Google Library 
> program, and found the possible exception listed at
> http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/c-fineprint.html


The case discussed on that page, Twin Books v. Walt Disney Co., 
probably isn't the reason for Google's cautious treatment of pre-1923 
U.K. books, since the disputed work in that case, the original 
"Bambi," was first published in Germany in the German language.


> I looked at the 1909 Copyright Act, Sections 22 and 23, where it 
> basically says that works in the English language published in a 
> foreign country can get 5 years of interim copyright protection, in 
> which time the copyright can create an authorized edition in the US 
> and get a US copyright....


It would probably be more accurate to call it the pre-1976 copyright 
law, because the 1909 Copyright Act was amended many times over the 
years, and some provisions were changed substantially. For instance, 
in the original 1909 Act, ad interim copyrights only lasted "thirty 
days," not "five years." Here's a link to a page image of Sections 
20-23 of the original 1909 Act:

http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/1909_20-23.png

(Note that the sections you referred to as 22 and 23 were originally 
numbered 21 and 22. The section numbers are different because this 
section was inserted decades later as Sec. 6:

http://www.megalaw.com/top/copyright/1909/1909_6.php

That pushed back the numbers of the following sections.)


>                      ... IANAL, but this suggests to me that English 
> language publications published abroad prior to 1918 are all in the 
> public domain in the US because the interim copyright expired no later 
> than 1922, and any copyrights from an authorized US edition obtained 
> in 1917-1922 have lapsed.


Ad interim copyrights didn't result in longer copyright terms. If an 
authorized U.S. edition was published within the ad interim 
period--and all the formalities were complied with--the copyright 
would be "extended to endure" for the same term as U.S. works. For 
example, if a book's ad interim copyright had been in effect for 2 
years at the time an authorized U.S. edition was published, the 
initial copyright term would have lasted 26 more years for a total of 
28 years.


> This is obviously not the rule by which Google is operating, for I can 
> easily find English language books published in the UK in 1908 for 
> which Google only shows the snippet view.


It's easy enough to find 19th century books in Google Book Search that 
are shown only in snippet view. :)

Seriously, I think there are probably two reasons that Google is being 
careful with books first published outside the U.S. from 1909 through 
1922. First, in the case of foreign language (non-English) works, the 
Twin Books v. Walt Disney Co. decision would certainly apply. The 
second reason, I suspect, would be a few quirks in the 1909 Copyright 
Act (both the original and amended versions) regarding works first 
published abroad in the English language and the way the law was 
applied by the U.S. Copyright Office.

If you reread the section on ad interim copyrights, you'll see that 
while it specified how an ad interim copyright could be secured, it 
didn't say that getting one was required or say that failure to get 
one would result in the work falling into the public domain. And 
here's an example where the Copyright Office registered a copyright 
for a British work when the first U.S. edition was published, even 
though it was years after any ad interim copyright would have expired.

According to the British Library's Integrated Catalogue, in 1934 a 
British edition was published of "Port o' Missing Men. Strange Tales 
of the Stranger Regiment" by P. C. (Percival Christopher) Wren, who 
was probably best known as the author of "Beau Geste." For some 
reason, a U.S. edition wasn't published until 1943, nine years later, 
and that's when the Copyright Office registered the copyright. See the 
1971 renewal record here:

http://shelf1.library.cmu.edu/Projects/crr/1971/1971-7-3749.tif


"WREN, PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER.
    Port o'missing men: strange tales of
      the Foreign Legion. B) 25Sep43;
      A175736. Richard Alan Graham-Smith
      (PPW); 10Sep71; R511523."


(The subtitle was changed for the U.S. edition.)

So if a pre-1923 foreign work in the English language wasn't published 
in the U.S. until 1923 or later, it's possible that it might still be 
under copyright here.


Jose Menendez