Book People Archive

Re: Foreign publication prior to 1923 and public domain

On Sept. 28, David Starner wrote:

> On 9/27/06, Jose Menendez wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> However, it's possible that the American edition was distinct enough 
> from the English edition to earn its own copyright. If they changed 
> the title, they changed the cover art and cover text, which would earn 
> a copyright in itself....


But in that case, the copyright would have covered only the new 
material that had been added to the book, and that would have been 
noted in the renewal entry. For instance, if you look at the scan I 
linked to in my last post:

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

you'll see this entry right under the one for Wren's book, "Port 
o'missing men":


"WRENCH, EMILY KIMBROUGH.
    We followed our hearts to Hollywood,
      by Emily Kimbrough. Drawings by
      Helen E. Hokinson. NM: additions
      & revisions. (c) 12Nov43; A177327.
      Emily Kimbrough (Mrs. Kimbrough
      Wrench) (A); 7Oct71; R514383."


Note the "NM: additions & revisions" line. And if we look at PG's 
ebook of U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1971 July - December (the volume 
which included the "Port o'missing men" renewal):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11844/11844-8.txt

we'll see quite a few copyrights that were limited to new matter. For 
example:


"BRONTE, CHARLOTTE.
    Jane Eyre. Illus. by Edward A. Wilson.
      NM: illus. (c) 25Sep44; A184010.
      Random House, Inc. (PWH); 30Sep71;
      R514426."

"SPENCER, HENRY CECIL.
    Technical drawing problems, by Henry
      Cecil Spencer & Hiram E. Grant.
      (Series 2) NM: new cover & 12
      additional problem sheets.
      (c) 1Nov44; AA468469. H. C. Spencer
      & H. E. Grant (A); 10Dec71; R518173."


Note the "new cover" in the last entry. The entry for "Port o'missing 
men," however, didn't include any mention of new matter. The copyright 
was for the whole book, not for additions or changes made to the 
British edition.


>                    ... The explanation I found most likely is that the 
> book was processed by an employee who had a hundred books submitted 
> for copyright that he needed to handle before lunch, and the book was 
> quickly processed with no thought as to previous publication....


No, that explanation isn't likely. In the first place, the average 
number of registrations for actual books handled by the Copyright 
Office on a daily basis back then was nowhere near 100. (By far, most 
registrations in Class A, i.e. "Books," were for pamphlets and 
leaflets.) Take a look at the Annual Report of the Register of 
Copyrights for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1944 (which covered the 
period when "Port o'missing men" was registered):

http://www.copyright.gov/reports/annual/archive/ar-1944.pdf

On the 4th page of the PDF, you'll see a table, "Registration by 
subject matter classes for the fiscal years 1940 to 1944, inclusive." 
For fiscal year 1944 (July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944), there were only 
7,585 registrations for "Books proper" that were "Printed in the 
United States," only 82 for books "Printed abroad in a foreign 
language," and only 602 for "English books registered for ad interim 
copyright." That makes a total of 8,269. Divide that by about 250-260 
business days in a year, and you get about 32 or 33 books per day. So 
I doubt that a single employee back then ever had to handle 100 
"before lunch" one day.

By contrast, there were 27,683 registrations for "Pamphlets, leaflets, 
etc." and 4,730 for "Contributions to newspapers and periodicals" that 
were printed in the U.S. (Since the numbers for foreign "books" 
weren't broken down further, e.g. by "Books proper," "Pamphlets, 
leaflets, etc.," I'll count all of them as actual books.) So in fiscal 
year 1944, actual books amounted to only about 20.3% of the total 
Class A registrations.

And was it the same overworked employee who, less than a year later, 
issued a registration for another one of Wren's books when it was 
first published in the U.S.--6 years after it was published in the 
U.K.? See the renewal entry here:

http://shelf1.library.cmu.edu/Projects/crr/1972/1972-1-1761.tif


"WREN, PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER.
    Rough shooting; true tales & strange
      stories. (c) 14Aug44; A182348.
      Richard Alan Graham-Smith (PPW);
      23Jun72; R531465."


If you check the British Library's Integrated Catalogue, you'll see 
that "Rough shooting" was published in the U.K. in 1938.

By the way, did you notice that both the "Port o'missing men" and 
"Rough shooting" entries had "(PPW)" after the name of the claimant? 
(PPW) is the abbreviation for "proprietor of a posthumous work." Wren 
died in 1941. Both books were published in the U.K. during his 
lifetime, but they weren't published in the U.S. until after his 
death. Don't you think the fact that someone was claiming a copyright 
in a dead author's work would have been more reason to check the claim 
carefully?

The fact is that under U.S. copyright law back then, foreign books in 
the English language couldn't get full-term copyrights until U.S. 
editions, complying with the requirements for manufacturing, notice, 
deposit of copies, etc. were published. Ad interim copyrights were 
temporary protection to give foreign authors a chance to get U.S. 
editions published. Without ad interim copyright protection, in many 
cases U.S. publishers could have flooded the market with unauthorized 
editions before the authorized U.S. editions finally came out. But as 
I pointed out before, the law didn't say that securing an ad interim 
copyright was required or that failure to secure an ad interim 
copyright would forfeit getting a full copyright later on when a U.S. 
edition was published.


Jose Menendez