Wikisource:Copyright discussions/Archives/2011-02

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Kept

Farmhand's Refrain

The following discussion is closed:

kept — billinghurst sDrewth 14:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

uploaded today, though quite possibly CV due to its year of publication. Uploaded by an IP address so harder to get the attention of the contributor. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm. Apparently originally published in the June 1938 issue of Poetry, [A Magazine of Verse] magazine; that issue was not renewed (per here, only issues from 1944 on were renewed). The poem would have had to be renewed by Lewis separately in 1965 or 1966 for copyright to still exist. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I find that odd. After the death of the original copyright holder, Harriet Monroe, in 1936, rights for the magazine moving forward where obtained by the 'Modern Poetry Association' (eventually renamed to the current 'Poetry Foundation'). Checking along these names and along the current magazine title (Poetry) shows no evidence of any lapse in copyright coverage from 1922 on through today. The Monroe Library at the University of Chicago regards works up to 1936, the year of Monroe's death, as partially their's fwiw.
Can't say these facts equate to a definative copyright being in place for the work but there is is no evidence to the contrary other than the ommission of years 1936 to 1943 at the above linked 3rd party University of Pennsylvania site. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
There's many cases where works that you would think would have been renewed weren't. I don't know what type of evidence you expect to find for a lapse in copyright coverage. If you look at the scans of the copyright renewals[1], there's no renewals for Poetry in the list of periodicals. I don't see that any evidence short of a link to the appropriate page of the copyright renewal volumes or a renewal ID would convince me this is not PD right now.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Basically, no renewal being listed in the renewal volumes printed by the U.S. Copyright Office is basically saying that copyright was not renewed. There can be some odd paths by which a renewal can apply to a work, such as photos being inside another work which was renewed, but particularly for a periodical you'd think that being in the periodical section would be the only way. They may have obtained the rights, but they also then would have obtained the responsibility to renew copyright, so if they forgot, it became PD. The renewal volumes are now online; if somebody can point to a specific renewal entry as being the one which covered the magazine, then we can delete at that point. At this point though, all available evidence seems to indicate that no renewal was ever filed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Wasn't the poem included in a 1952 Anthology [2] -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
That would not affect its copyright term. You can't extend copyrights by publishing them again. It would still have been under copyright at the time but the renewal had to happen in 1965 or 1966. Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
balance of probability, not renewed.

— billinghurst sDrewth 14:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


Head of state (Referenda) Bill

The following discussion is closed:

kept — billinghurst sDrewth 14:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

A bill that has been proposed to the New Zealand parliament, though has yet to be passed, hence it would not qualify as {{PD-EdictGov}}. I also do not see that New Zealand copyright law excludes it from copyright. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment: it does occur to me that this doesn't address the copyright situation in the US. But it seems to me that if the NZ government considers this to be PD on grounds directly connected to those covered by {{PD-EdictGov}}, then one might reasonably consider it to fall under the "similar official legal documents" wording there. - Htonl (talk) 13:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
    It would seem more likely that it should have its own variation of licence (he says through gritted teeth of yet another licence), and it would seem to be something like PD-NZGov, limitations notated and added to Help:Copyright tags. Come to think of it, we probably also need to create Template:OGL-UK too.
  • keep aka withdrawing specific copyright proposal. With regard to its provenance, under our versions guidance, each time that it is proposed to the parliament, it would seem that each would be a version, so any further versions would be disambiguated.


Deleted

Complete Works of Author:Fyodor Tyutchev

The following discussion is closed:

deleted

I was looking at Recent Changes, and noticed one of the poems of Author:Fyodor Tyutchev had questionable copyright status. Looking around apparently they were all created in 2006 by a user who hasn't edited since then, copying them from a website that itself appears to be infringing copyright. Complete works is a bit of an exaggeration; there's one that Yann labeled as legal, though I'll mention it below to be through, and several that might be salvagable with the right emails. Someone who can read Russian would be helpful as Tiuticheviana, our source for all this, is primarily a Russian language website. So, in chunks,

  • Translations by F. Jude. As that website indicates, that's a 2000 publication, and I see no evidence that they were released under a free license, so these should be clear deletes.
  • Translations merely attributed to Tiuticheviana. The website might give a friendly copyright status somewhere, and we might be able to get permission to use them, but we have no free license noted on Wikisource or obvious to the English reader on Tiuticheviana.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Attributed to V.V. Nabokov, details unknown, and in this mess I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt
  • Attributed to 1d35crewman, a good target if someone wants to ask for a free license.


    • Tears (Tyutchev/Ashton Smith); needs clean up and removal of the reference to V.V. Nabokov if it is Smith's. Google is just telling me that it was printed in various places as early as the 1940s, and it'd be nice to have publication information, but it's included here for completeness instead of deletion.

--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


I know that copyright is quite complicated thing and nobody can understand it. We can leave here the stuff printed before 1932. But if this is still questionable, we can consider before deleting of them to move at least part of them into Wikilivres... It would be safer there under CC-BY-NC licence. What do you think? --Dmitrismirnov (talk) 14:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Copyright isn't that hard in this case; if it's recent and you don't have a clear license from the translator, you can't use it. That goes for Wikilivres as much as us; unless we know that these translations have been released by their translators under CC-BY-NC, they can't host them under that license.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I've just wrote to 1d35crewman, let see what he will answer... --Dmitrismirnov (talk) 18:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Did we get an answer? billinghurst (talk) 02:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
No! --Dmitrismirnov (talk) 17:08, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
All seem more likely, rather than less likely to be copyright violations. Deleted

— billinghurst sDrewth 10:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Carta Testamento

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a suicide note by a Getúlio Vargas, a Brazilian President. Is it really a testament, as the title implies, and a public record? Or is it copyrightable by Getúlio Vargas' estate? Any help would be greatly appreciated. ResScholar (talk) 01:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

'Comment Is it a public record? If it is, and there is the ability under Brazilian law to host, then we should be okay. As it is I would say that it gets treated as an unpublished work that was published, and we are within its copyright period, owned by the estate. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Apparently it's an address, a political testament, so because political in nature, probably a work written in the course of carrying out the duties of executive. Perhaps we need to ask, did Brazil consider written works of the executive public domain or copyrightable by the office holder? ResScholar (talk) 06:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Harleian MS 3859 Genealogies

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.--Jusjih (talk) 00:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

This translation of a twelfth century manuscript of genealogies was contributed by User:Nicknack009 but User:Cavila professed (see Harleian Genealogies on Wikipedia) that it came from a translation by P. C. Bartrum in a work called Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts Cardiff: UWP, 1966. This British copyrighted-in-1996 work would receive all the benefits of an American work in that year, meaning copyright until 2062. In other words, I propose to delete this translation. ResScholar (talk) 07:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe that it would be considered to have artistic merit and probably fits within {{PD-ineligible}}. What is there is simply information, and that has literal translation, and would not seem to be translated by any other means. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd largely agree with Billinghurst but 32 and 33 at least are non-trivial translations.--Longfellow (talk) 16:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
The category Billinghurst mentioned didn't occur to me when I nominated, so I'm open to "salvaging" some of the translation, following what seem to me to be the implications of the observations Billinghurst and Longfellow have kindly tendered here. ResScholar (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
This one may not be worth keeping...according to NickNack009 (if that is him using an anonymous account), every section header is a researched speculation inserted by Bartrum, and every bracketed letter added to the names has the same status. Removing those, I don't think the residuum would be very valuable. On the other hand, we could put a question mark in place of the inserted letter in each case and remove the Wikilink to the individual it is guessed that it refers to. I think that would substantially remove the "scholastic merit" that NickNack009 suggested exists. ResScholar (talk) 07:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Australia Tibet Council report: Courting The Dragon

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

Looking at the the ATC site, I was unable to find any copyright statement through any of the works, in either the negative or positive senses, so believe that we need to consider it under copyright and delete it. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:39, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems likely to be copyright. On the other hand, I suspect the authors would be very glad to give it as much publicity as possible and might be willing to grant a licence.--Longfellow (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
States source is this page; the PDF link there no longer works but there is a clear copyright statement at the bottom of the page. No question it is copyrighted so we need an indication of free licensing (or declaration to the public domain) by that project. They may well be willing to, but otherwise it is an obvious copyvio. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:01, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
  • The copyright statement in the above link precludes its inclusion here until such a time as it is freely licensed; then, and only then, the text can be restored. Jude (talk) 11:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Excerpts from Kabbalah for the Student

The following discussion is closed:

Distributed under a no derivative licence. Incompatible with WS licencing. Deleted. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The following are from a 2008 work copyrighted by Michael Laitman entitled Kabbalah for the Student:

It seems to be a compilation of works from a few 20th century Jewish writers, one of whom died not too long ago. I doubt any of the works are public domain, despite the use of the PD templates.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Fairly certain a previous similar IP contributor was advised earlier on one or more of these works to go the OTRS route - can't seem to find it though. At any rate, the so called disclaimer at the given website doesn't sit well with me either. George Orwell III (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

>> I'm the contributor of those documents. I pretend they are in the public domain since they consist of "works, ideas, and information that are made available for use by members of the public" (public domain, par.2), as it is stated on the publisher's website (http://www.kabbalahbooks.info/), at the bottom of the page:

"All material on this site is presented by the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute, for the purpose of correcting the world and improving life on Earth. Hence, all materials are permitted for use and distribution, provided the content is not changed and its origin is referenced."

As I didn't make any change with respect to the content, and since I referenced it on Wikisource, I think I've fulfilled the two conditions enumerated in the disclaimer. Besides, if the publisher was so concerned about copyright violations, why would he distribute the work (Kabbalah for the Student) for free on the Internet? Thus, even though it is written "all rights reserved" at the beggining of Kabbalah for the Student, I would say that, on one hand, the book has been published in 2008 (and that such a written statement may just be automatically made on a cover page of a book), and, on the other hand, as long as the disclaimer appears on a website that is updated regularly, a statement made in 2010 should prevail over one that was made in 2008. And even though it seems there is a contradiction between the website disclaimer and the book's copyright, such a disclaimer prevents Wikisource to make any illegal act by publishing these documents.

The reason I published these documents on Wikisource is that I quoted Yehuda & Baruch Ashlag articles on Wikiquote and that I wanted interested readers to be able to click onto the referenced articles' links instead of the referenced PDF book's link, which opens a 800-page file that may load slowly in Acrobate Reader.

At last, I can tell George Orwell III that I don't know the "previous similar IP contributor" he is talking about. I invite him to go to Wikiquote and see that I (WikiMart) added to Yehuda & Baruch Ashlag's pages very recently (and that in fact I began with creating pages on both authors on Wikiquote.fr, whose contents I only added to the English sites), and that all documents I published on Wikisource are only related to quotations I listed on Wikiquote. Thus there is no such thing as a conspiracy between a previous IP contributor and myself, and that I wasn't either that other IP contributor operating from an other computer -- and that in fact the only reason why I haven't a Wikisource account is that I do not wish to have an account for each Wiki service I use, as I discovered we cannot use an existing Wiki account to log in at another wiki site. It should only come as no surprise that another Internet user found those articles interesting and wanted to share it with the Internet community. Do not worry: if Wikisource ever decides not to publish my pages I won't come back trying to make them published again, as I feel I have wasted enough of my time already. —unsigned comment by 174.89.213.58 (talk) .

Forgive me if this was not you or was about another subject - I did not mean to infer any wrong doing whatsoever. Still - I believe these works are most likely unhostable without better permission (OTRS) or some sort of better recognized licensing for WS. George Orwell III (talk) 22:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Supposing that the disclaimer on the website is even applicable, it's still not good enough for WS. We guarantee the right to make changes to a work, which they expressly forbid. I agree that it is still unhostable pending OTRS or some other miracle.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:38, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
For Wikisource the works don't fall under automatic public domain, and that text at the site would seem that they have note been released under a licence that allow us to host them (see Wikisource:Copyright tags). So the options are for someone to seek permission to host them as an OTRS (see Commons:OTRS for best description) or to remove them. This isn't about blaming a person it is about protecting the author's intellectual property, or getting permission from the author. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

>> In this case, I invite you guys to delete all documents listed above, because I don't know how to do it myself: I would erase all contents within this pages, but this wouldn't remove the pages themselves, or would it? And finally, I don't want to bash Wikisource, which I think is a useful, meaningful wiki service, but I think there would be room to ease your copyright policy a bit. I mean here we have a publisher/author/copyright holder who is saying: "take all my books, distribute and use them as much as you want, as long as you reference them and don't change their content" and Wikisource has no policy to accommodate him... I would approach the publisher/author/copyright in order to get a more formal authorization (licence), but as you guys are telling me that WS "guarantee[s] the right to make changes to a work" I doubt he would agree with that -- just as I don't agree with it either. Does this mean because Charles Dickens died more than 100 years ago, WS could make any change it likes over his work? I don't get it really... However, I think you guys are doing a great job and I congratulate you for making this service (albeit improvable) available to the Internet community. Best wishes. —unsigned comment by 174.89.218.218 (talk) .

Yes, this seems an unfortunate situation... the license is close, but does not quite meet the somewhat arbitrary, but well established, definition of "free" as specified on freedomdefined.org and mandated by the Wikimedia Foundation for all of its projects -- it allows use and distribution, but not derivative works. This is somewhat ironic here on wikisource, as the entire idea is to host the exact original work, and we don't want modified versions, but we are still bound to only accept freely-licensed (or public domain) works. "Free" licenses, in situations like this, typically allow derivative works (i.e. modified versions) but only if they are very clearly labeled as modified, along with who modified them, and with the changed portions pointed out. That type of condition would be OK (and is often required by moral rights laws in many countries). I see on www.kabbalah.info that they have an explicit Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license, which permits distribution, but does not allow commercial use nor derivative works, which we need to have (we accept CC-BY or CC-BY-SA works, but can't host anything licensed with CC licenses having "NC" or "ND" components). www.kabbalahbooks.info does not have that explicit license, and the wording may be construed to allow commercial use, but definitely still no derivatives. And given the explicit CC license on the first and obviously related site, I'd probably be reluctant to assume commercial use as well (and the URLs on some of these source PDFs go to www.kabbalah.info, not www.kabbalahbooks.info). As for Dickens, yes, once works are public domain they can be modified, or portions used, etc., as copyright can no longer be used to enforce any restrictions (it's still best to credit the original author, and note the nature of the changes). While wikisource itself is not making a derivative work, nor using them commercially, third-party users generally expect that they have such rights with any material hosted here, and in this case they would not, which could lead to problems. So, unfortunately, per Wikisource:Copyright policy, we would need to remove them unless the license is changed, which does seem unlikely (and nothing wrong with that -- they are choosing a quite liberal license which meets their needs, but unfortunately doesn't quite line up with ours). Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Restoring Sanity

The following discussion is closed:

Speedy deleted per contributor's request. If compatible copyright permission is evidenced, this may be undeleted.--Jusjih (talk) 03:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a speech delivered just a few days ago and apparently transcribed from a video. There is no evidence to suggest that it is PD.--Longfellow (talk) 09:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Women can change the world

The following discussion is closed:

Speedy deleted. --Eliyak T·C 04:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Copied apparently from [3]. --Eliyak T·C 16:37, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

An Allegory about the Rich Man's Son in the Cellar

The following discussion is closed:

Duplicate report, no action taken

This is released under a non-derivative licence, as can be seen on the talk page:

"All material on this site is presented by the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute, for the purpose of correcting the world and improving life on Earth. Hence, all materials are permitted for use and distribution, provided the content is not changed and its origin is referenced."

The linked PDF claims "Copyright © 2008 by MICHAEL LAITMAN. All rights reserved".

Either way, we can't have it here. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 00:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Other works with identical licensing

Yep, these are all listed in the #Excerpts from Kabbalah for the Student section above. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
My mistake, I didn't see a {{copyvio}}, so I didn't look. Sorry about that. Closing as a dupe. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 04:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Halley's Bible Handbook

The following discussion is closed:

The copyright was renewed, at least for the versions on either side. Deleted, with subpage. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this work may be a copyvio because it was published in 1961. --kathleen wright5 (talk) 12:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Copyright was renewed in 1990 for the editions from 1955, 1957, 1962. No sign of 1961 edition, but this could be because the date on our work is wrong. I'm not sure if our version could be PD is it is a unrenewed edition, but other editions either side are copyrighted. Since it is so incomplete, I'd say delete in the absence of more information. However, I would like to know what the PD status is if this really is an unrenewed edition. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • delete, with only the contributor's information, and the other versions under copyright, one would think that all protected, and wouldn't want to be splitting hairs to keep it. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • delete; only one renewal is needed for each piece of text. It seems weird that they wouldn't renew the 22nd edition, but all that means is that we can use anything new in the 22nd edition that's not derivative of the 21st edition. Probably not worth it, but take it as you will. (BTW, for renewals done after 1978, the copyright.gov search engine is the definitive source, so for a non-renewal assertion in works from the 1950s and 1960s, a search there should be done. The first couple years of the 1950s, both the Gutenberg transcriptions and the copyright office should be checked. The Stanford database is a little more iffy then the Gutenberg files, as they occasionally misparsed the format, and thus a search on the original flat file is safer, if more clumsy.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Just for info: even if the 21st edition was not copyright renewed, it would have been copyright when the 22nd edition came out so would the renewal of the 22nd edition cover material in it copied from the 21st?--Longfellow (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Nothing you do to later editions can extend the copyright on earlier ones. PG has dealt with a case where they had to recall an etext because the short story that wasn't renewed was published as part of a novel that year and the novel was renewed, but the renewal for the novel was within the time period for the renewal for the short story, and PG's lawyers advised them the copyright holders had a case. So because this seems to be an annual, perhaps the renewal for the 22nd edition came in time that it might be argued for the 21st, except that this does have a claims limitation: "NM: new picture prints on 34 various pages with appropriate captions and text with respect to the new pictures.".--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Delete, highly unlikely that we'd even be able to pick out any intelligible text outside of copyright. BD2412 T 18:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Hadith

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted Jeepday (talk) 00:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Various contributions by Muslimahmadi1 (talk • contribs), 41.153.206.74 (talk • contribs) and 41.153.53.200 (talk • contribs) appear to be translations of hadith by Muhammad Muhsin Khan, but I have not been able to find any copyright information. --Eliyak T·C 16:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

You and I have been pushing him for over a week on the contributions, with not even a response. I say that they should be speedy deleted under the criteria for works of no recorded authorship. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I picked one off at random from the named account, and found a very close ghit at usc.edu: Partial Translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud. The page makes a pretty clear assertion of a copyright held by the Uni. Deletion all with prejudice seems justifiable, especially if a received message got no response. cygnis insignis 21:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I note that Muslimahmadi1 has not edited since, after messages started appearing, seems a clear Copy vio and community consensus to delete. I am deleting them all. Jeepday (talk) 00:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

ATCi Simulsat

The following discussion is closed:

speedy deleted — billinghurst sDrewth 06:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Without definite copyright license while looking like a very recent work dated in 2009, this seems unacceptable per WS:SCOPE#Advertisements as well.--Jusjih (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Meeting with the Representatives of the Jewish Community

The following discussion is closed:

speedy deleted, copyright — billinghurst sDrewth 05:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Tagged by the creator, less than an hour after it was created, with {{sdelete}} and the reasoning "It is copyrighted." I've replaced the tag with {{copyvio}} and brought it here. As far as I can see, there's no copyright exemption that would cover Papal speeches, and it was evidently given in New York, so there's no question of Vatican (Italian?) copyright law. I would say delete. - Htonl (talk) 14:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the creator. I saw that the Pope's page had no works, so I decided to enrich it with a small passage from a short speech given in New York before a group of Jews. I took it from the Vatican City website. Only later did I see the copyright notice at the bottom of the transcript. After that, I wasted no time and tagged the document for deletion.--136.183.241.187 20:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
If you want to get into technicalities, I think the Vatican does follow Italian copyright law. Some info here, including where they claim full copyright protection on the Pope's works. Giving a speech is not usually considered "publication", so the website is probably the "first" publication and thus it would be considered a Vatican/Italian work I would think. All of which is pretty much irrelevant... it is copyrighted no matter which (Berne Convention) country it comes from.  Delete, speedy is appropriate. Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
This "speedy" deletion does seem to take quite a while.--136.183.241.187 04:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Hasten slowly is a quite okay, especially for someone new to the admin bit. It is now gone. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report Ref. No. V116/783/1047

The following discussion is closed:

deleted

1982 Australian government investigation into an air crash. Would have only been published in Australia. It wouldn't be seen as an edict of government, and I cannot see how it would not be under copyright (no evidence that it isn't). — billinghurst sDrewth 05:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

 Delete It would be Crown Copyright there. Public record I'm sure, but that is a separate concept from public domain. The transcript of the transmission may possibly be OK, but that would be it, and I'm not completely sure about that. One interesting twist is that the Australian government is going to start using Creative Commons licenses for a lot of the material they produce -- see here (the report on that page is licensed CC-BY). I'm sure it will take them a while to get that process in place so that works are released that way with regularity, and I'm not sure it will apply to older works like this, but it's not impossible that they may get there eventually. I think the New Zealand government instituted something similar this year. Carl Lindberg (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Extemporaneous speech is generally considered not copyrightable, so we should preserve the transcript, even though we can't preserve the rest of it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 Delete. Crown Copyright is still copyright. However,  Keep the transcript if that is not copyrightable. What license would the transcript be? {{PD-ineligible}}? Also, we could ask the Australian government if they would mind retroactively extending CC licences to this kind of work. There is nothing to lose in asking. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that portion would be PD-ineligible I think. May be different in Australia itself, but under U.S. law... it is likely OK. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 Delete Undoubtedly a copyvio.--Longfellow (talk) 16:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Treaty between Tibet and Mongolia (1913)

The following discussion is closed:

deleted — billinghurst sDrewth 14:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

This work is a translation that came from http://www.tibetjustice.org/materials/treaties/treaties14.html though they quote that they have that translation courtesy of a work which I see was published in 1987. So while the original work itself may be an edict of government, the translation is not, and I do not see how we can apply edict of govt. to a work that is a personal translation. [Note that the work is not tagged at all] — billinghurst sDrewth 07:24, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

After a database check ...

The following discussion is closed:

deleted — billinghurst sDrewth 14:21, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

At User_talk:Majrjejm#Licence for On Being the Right Size? we need a check for a 1926 work may have been renewed or not. Some help would be appreciated. It is probably also worth us taking the time to update the list at the top of the page or elsewhere for the available search tools for checking copyright status. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

If I'm reading this correctly, it appears to still be under copyright. The March 1926 issue of Harper's Magazine had its copyright renewed as a whole in 1953. See this 1st scan of copyright renewals (bottom right) and this 2nd scan of copyright renewals (top left), which are linked from the Copyright Registrations for 1953 page at the University of Pennsylvania's website. I have not found a specific renewal by Haldane in either 1953 or 1954. If the publisher, Harper & Row, did not, for some reason, have authority to renew then it would be public domain. However, from this information (and assuming this was the first publication) then I don't think it will be in the public domain until about 2020-2021. Of course, someone with better knowledge of US copyright law should probably double check this. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
If I understand it right, it depends on the specific contract Harper's used. It's possible they used a first publication license only like modern magazines, but I don't know whether that was common in that day. My personal inclination is just to ban anything that first appeared in a magazine that was renewed without very good argument; as far as I know the rules are very complex and in some cases very hard to prove.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
This page lists the first copyrighted issue for periodicals; Harper's indeed have copyrighted all possible (i.e., 1923 and on) issues. As Prosfilaes says, there are possible avenues that it could be PD but we would need some evidence to support that, and lacking any we should delete. Per the other talk page a 1928 reprint listed "Harper & Row" as the copyright holder, so it would appear at the very least that the initial 28-year rights were assigned. Sometimes authors only gave those rights and withheld renewal rights, but often they assigned both of them, and lacking any evidence I think we should assume that Harper's had the rights to renew the work. Transfers of renewal rights do become void if the author dies before the renewal is actually filed (which must wait until 27 years after the original publication), but that is not the case with this work. So, if renewal rights were originally transferred as well, they "vested" (became fully valid) when the renewal was filed since the author was still alive, and Harper's would still own the copyright.  Delete. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Law on Cooperatives

The following discussion is closed:

deleted — billinghurst sDrewth 13:49, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

In patrolling edits, I found this work that was copied from Wikipedia in 2005. The Russian would be a government edict, but someone translated this, and Google Books claims that it came from USSR documents annual, Volume 1988, published by Academic International Press, ISBN 0875691145. It won't show more than an irrelevant snippet, but I find it most probable that's the copyrighted source. --Prosfilaes (talk) 19:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Anything published by Academic International Press is almost certainly copyrighted.--Longfellow (talk) 10:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


Other

Threats to the peaceful observance of the bicentennial

The following discussion is closed:

no consensus, 2 years

Previous discussion regarding this work.

This is senate report, "Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary" and "For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office".

Some exhibits may be found from page 51 onwards, and they were "ordered into the record." Some of this material could be classed as manifesto material, such as this, but where that doesnt cover it, where does that leave these pages? Does the senate report need to be redacted for copyright reasons? John Vandenberg (chat) 05:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe we came across similar issues in the past, and votes were split on whether or not to "redact" things. Zodiac Killer letters had a letter removed because the killer wrote it on the back of a Rand McNally map, which was deemed to be a copyVio on his part and thus we couldn't host it. But I, being me, of course argued that it's ridiculous, and like saying that if the Presidential Address included a reference such as "In the words of w:Kite Runner, "Freedom exists only where noble men and women are willing to sacrifice their all for it"" - we would have to remove that part of the speech because it falls under Fair Use. It seems like a ridiculously slippery slope, I think we might be better served to come up with a template with params, that says fairUseNote|pages 8-11 and the quote on page 4 are all here reproduced as in the original, with the notion of Fair Use in mind." or something. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Isaac Brock 14:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I see lots of choices other than "deleting it all", since the majority of the work is PD; worst case scenario we have to remove page 51-onwards. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Joseph McCabe. 01:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

This is by no means authoritative, however in Copyediting: A Practical Guide, by Karen Judd (ISBN 1560526084) p. 202 it says:

“

Any copyrighted material introduced into GPO publications must be credited as well, and permission gotten. For example, if a copyrighted poem was read into the Congressional Record, you eed to get permission for (and credit) the poem but need only give credit to the GPO for their part in publishing the Congressional Record.

”

Many people have told me that anything entered into the Congressional Record was public domain, however there is nothing to that effect in USC 44 Chapter 9: Congressional Record, so my response has so far been .. "we'll see". We will likely need to find the relevant law to know the truth; and it will likely be in Title 44 or in Title 28 for this document which is published by the w:Committee on the Judiciary.

Title 28 PART IV > CHAPTER 91 > § 1498 Patent and copyright cases (b) says:

“

Hereafter, whenever the copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States shall be infringed by the United States, by a corporation owned or controlled by the United States, or by a contractor, subcontractor, or any person, firm, or corporation acting for the Government and with the authorization or consent of the Government, the exclusive action which may be brought for such infringement shall be an action by the copyright owner against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims for the recovery of his reasonable and entire compensation as damages for such infringement, including the minimum statutory damages as set forth in section 504 (c) of title 17, United States Code

”

John Vandenberg (chat) 07:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

    • My memory suggests that if you look through the archives to find were we discussed the US government report on the JFK assignation, there should be some reference to somewhere authoritative which describes the US government's use of this kind of material is under Fair Use. That was years ago but I have no exact time frame. I am sorry I don't have time the do the research myself here. Otherwise I agree with Sherurcij that a definitive copyright problem here means at most we delete the exhibits from page 51 onward.--BirgitteSB 13:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Re-listing to gain proper consensus. Quotes:

Some exhibits may be found from page 51 onwards, and they were "ordered into the record." (John Vandenberg)
Copyediting: A Practical Guide, by Karen Judd (ISBN 1560526084) p. 202 it says:
“

Any copyrighted material introduced into GPO publications must be credited as well, and permission gotten. For example, if a copyrighted poem was read into the Congressional Record, you eed to get permission for (and credit) the poem but need only give credit to the GPO for their part in publishing the Congressional Record.

”
Many people have told me that anything entered into the Congressional Record was public domain, however there is nothing to that effect in USC 44 Chapter 9: Congressional Record (John Vandenberg)

Current indication appears to be that, while something copyrighted may be entered into Congressional Record, it does not automatically enter the public domain. As such, copyrighted material inside of this work would need to be redacted or deleted. Jude (talk) 07:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Ethically, I would consider that each part of the appendix should be evaluated on its individual merits. So that becomes redact parts from p. 51 onwards. If it is too hard to separate, then just keep up to p.50 of the report. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Just trying to clarify the issue here, since this topic has been open a very long time. The reprinting of the material in the appendix to the report is not probative on whether the material is copyrighted; whoever advised User:Jayvdb that republication of copyrighted material in the Congressional Record placed that material in the public domain was in error. As the House Report on the Copyright Act of 1976 explained, “publication or other use by the Government of a private work would not affect its copyright protection in any way.” (p. 60). Copyrighted material stays copyrighted even if it gets published in the Congressional Record alongside other material (the legislators’ statements, for instance) that is clearly public domain. (Does that mean Congress is infringing the authors’ copyrights? No, at least according to Congress; in the same report it excused its own copying as fair use: “The Committee has considered the question of publication, in Congressional hearings and documents, of copyrighted material. Where the length of the work or excerpt published and the number of copies authorized are reasonable under the circumstances, and the work itself is directly relevant to a matter of legitimate legislative concern, the Committee believes that the publication would constitute fair use.” p. 73). I have a feeling that most of the Weather Underground material included in the appendices is {{PD-US-no-notice}}, although only somebody who has done a document-by-document review (which I have not) would be able to tell for sure. But the republication of the material in a legislative report is neither here nor there as far as copyright is concerned. Tarmstro99 (talk) 02:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Proposed action - I would propose that the action that we take is to reproduce the report of the work itself, and not the pages questioned as being in copyright. To that point we delete pages p.51 onwards at WS, stop the <pagelist> at page 50. Unless I hear a STOP command, I will close this item in a couple of weeks, and undertake proposed action. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Author:Al Gore

The following discussion is closed:

no consensus, 1 year

It's true that Al Gore was working for a time as an elected official of the U.S. Government. However, all of his works presently on Wikisource would seem to be copyrighted for one of two reasons: (a) they were made while he was in office but were not part of his duties as a government official; (b) they were made after he left office. Maybe the copyright box on his page needs to be replaced with something a little clearer? --LarryGilbert (talk) 23:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't think that A) applied, as all their life is subsumed by the office, as per the archives admin act (or whatever) as per the Blackberry of Obama. So I think that it is arguable and would rely on a look at the acts that appoint and manage Executive Office. If they are B) then fair cop. billinghurst (talk) 23:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I had to read up on this. :-) I think you're talking about the Presidential Records Act. It assigns ownership of presidential records to the United States, and yes, it also provides that "Vice-Presidential records shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter in the same manner as Presidential records" (44 USC § 2207). However, it makes an exclusion for "personal records", and by definition personal records include "materials relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President" (44 USC § 2201(3)(C)). I interpret that to mean that campaign speeches are not covered by the PRA and thus fall under standard copyright. Of course, nothing says we can't ask ol' Al for permission; I have a feeling he'd have a better attitude about that than other ex-VPs would. :-) --LarryGilbert (talk) 23:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Weird Tales copyright renewals and other H. P. Lovecraft periodical renewals

Author:Clark Ashton Smith

This is a moved version of an excerpt written by Carl Lindberg, Prosfilaes and myself in another copyvio discussion that has been closed that nominates two works and in particular explains the notion of "vesting" that Carl refers to:

The Maker of Gargoyles

The Empire of the Necromancers

Both of these works first appeared in 1932 editions of Weird Tales. According to the Wikisource page for this periodical, all of the 1932 editions were both copyrighted and renewed. ResScholar (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Arguing against myself now, didn't a court case say that if there are heirs to the originator of the work, only they can renew it, not the publisher? If anyone knows off hand, let us know, otherwise I will do some checking. ResScholar (talk) 08:25, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I read the Copyright Office Circular 15 and Copyright_Act_of_1976#.C2.A7_304._Duration_of_copyright:_Subsisting_copyrights Copyright Law § 304 (a) of 1976 Copyright Act and I'm still a bit confused. My best guess, based on those and some other stuff I've read, is that contributors to a magazine can renew their own material separately ("in the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work, the author of such work, if still living, or the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author be not living, or if such author, widow, widower, or children be not living, then the author's executors, or in the absence of a will, his or her next of kin shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright") but if they don't it will be renewed with the periodical ("in the case of [...] of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof [...] the proprietor of such copyright shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work"). However if the copyright was not originally owned by proprietor, if first publication rights alone were sold, then I don't believe they could renew the copyright (source: accumulation of junk knowledge). I know that the Weird Tales files that would tell us what Weird Tales bought the copyright for and what they just bought first publication rights for have been lost.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
We'll never know. If we ask the heirs, they'll say "we already have a preferred public domain outlet on the internet; why are you trying to chisel away at the commercial restrictions we'd like to place on all of them?". .[irrelevant section snipped] . . It's nice that our contributors like to have a complete collection of their favorite author here, but from time to time they're going to have to do their own legwork if they want that. ResScholar (talk) 08:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The question may be even thornier. Apparently, renewal rights will automatically be "vested" in the publisher if the author is still alive when the initial 28-year term expires; if the author dies before then though, publishers must get the rights re-transferred from the heirs, otherwise their renewal has no effect. Apparently there was an interesting question if the author died after the renewal application was filed but before the January 1 date where the initial term expired; it seems as though court cases went both ways. The 1992 copyright law clarified that the rights vested upon the renewal application, but not sure that would affect things before that time. There is a Patry article on it here giving the history, and another article here, both written because of Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony/ATV Publishing, LLC (a 2007 decision). Some earlier cases on the basic "vesting" principle are mentioned here. Naturally, we have this situation here -- I think the author died after the renewal was filed, but before the first term completely expired on January 1, 1962. Thus, if authors die before the renewal applications are made, it appears that such renewals do not serve to renew the copyright in the original author's actual text, unless rights have been explicitly re-assigned by heirs (difficult to prove). But if the original author is still alive, then it would appear that publisher's renewals are enough to keep copyright going, although (per circular 3) it may be considered to have an "erroneous name" on the copyright notice thus limiting infringement penalties if they got permission from the publisher. .[irrelevant section snipped] . . Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Well then in the case of these two Weird Tales stories by Clark Ashton Smith published in August and September 1932, they were both renewed in 1960, the renewal term expired on January 1, 1961, the rights were then vested in the publisher, and then Smith died later in the year. The rights having vested in the publisher, the renewal is still valid. Did I understand you right, Carl? ResScholar (talk) 04:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
My comment was originally for another item... yes, it would appear that renewal rights would have vested in this case. Unless there is reason to believe that Smith withheld renewal rights from Weird Tales, it would seem as though this one is still under copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 12:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Author:Howard Phillips Lovecraft

If you will read the relevant sections of the H.P. Lovecraft article in Wikipedia, you'll see that the copyright status of these stories is highly disputed. In addition, I am informed that the texts used are corrupt and laden with typos, etc. --Orangemike (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The status of most of his works is pretty clear. Anything published before 1923 is clearly out of copyright. Anything published without a renewal on the story or the periodical is clearly out of copyright. None of Lovecraft's stories were renewed separately; that's easily checkable from Gutenberg's renewals or The Stanford Renewal Database. In the cases where they were first published in a renewed periodical or one of Derleth's compilations, there is an arguable case. Later edited editions are still under copyright, of course; we need to stick with the text as printed in a non-renewed appearance.
I don't think it relevant to a copyright violation discussion to argue that the text is corrupt and laden with typos. There certainly could be a situation where a text would be so bad that we would just delete, but the few things I arbitrarily pulled up seemed to be in decent shape.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I replace The Alchemist (Lovecraft) with the first publication, and did a diff comparing that to what we had. I saw a few major single word changes; we had "black malevolence" where the original had "hatred" and elsewhere "piteous" where the original had "hideous", and consistently the original had "Comtes" for our "Count". There were a couple clear errors in our copy: "told" for "tolled", "perpetual dust" for "perpetual dusk". Both editions seem slightly confused, but in different ways, about present/past tense. There's a few preposition changes and other minor function word noise, as well as a few plural/singular changes where it didn't matter (e.g., the original had "was lifted off my shoulders" as opposed to "from my shoulder"). Lots and lots of comma changes. The overall effect isn't much, but there was difference.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The Rats in the Walls and other of Lovecraft's fictional works

This work appeared in Weird_Tales/1924#March, this bibliography page showing it was copyrighted and renewed. ResScholar (talk) 13:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The copyright commentary on the bottom of the Author:Lovecraft page is confusing. The second paragraph seems to say Weird Tales was required to renew each of the six tales it owned outright separately, while the third paragraph seems to say they only needed to renew the magazine itself. ResScholar (talk) 13:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The copyright commentary at the bottom of the page has more inconsistencies. There are 14 works mentioned by Chris Karr, not just 13. And according to Prosfilaes, Weird Tales could have renewed the stories through a copyright renewal of the magazine, not just Lovecraft's heirs. We need to either look at that work by Joshi and see which six were published elsewhere, or else delete any of the 14 that are here. ResScholar (talk) 13:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
There may be less than 14, though; Karr didn't check whether Weird Tales had been renewed in each particular month between 1923 and 1926 in which each story appeared. ResScholar (talk) 14:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
w:Distributed Proofreaders has gone through the Magazine Renewals and come up with a list of what was renewed for certain magazines, including Weird Tales. I'll defer to Clindberg on this, and since Lovecraft was dead by the time the renewal was need, the publisher renewal could not have covered it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
It might have covered it I suppose if they re-obtained the rights from the heirs... no clue about that though. But given the stuff I read recently, a Weird Tales renewal without any action by the Lovecraft heirs would not have renewed this particular story, as renewal rights would not have "vested" in Weird Tales and would have reverted to the heirs. And it sounds like the heirs never made any explicit renewals. Carl Lindberg (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
According to The Black Seas of Copyright: Arkham House Publishers and the H.P. Lovecraft Copyrights, in 1947 Derleth acquired all copyrights to the Weird Tales publications from WT; no matter who you think rightfully held the copyrights at that point, that negates any possibility that Weird Tales had re-obtained the rights.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
That is wonderfully messy. It seems clear per the vesting stuff that WT only held the original 28-year rights; anything beyond that reverted to the estate, so Derleth obtaining those WT rights would not have had a long-lasting effect. It also means that the copyright renewal listed above had no effect whatsoever on this work -- the copyright is claimed by Weird Tales itself, and if they had transferred the rights to Lovecraft's work, they would have had no right to renew this one specifically anyways. However... the literary executor of Lovecraft's estate was also working with Derleth it seems, so between the two, they would have had all the rights. But, it would also seem that a separate renewal would have been required to keep those rights going beyond 28 years. It would therefore be interesting to know if there were any renewals beyond the Weird Tales one... those would seem to be required. It does appear that new entities exist which are trying to control publication and claim rights, but, from that article, the author has a follow-up here where he thinks that the works are indeed public domain (he asked for evidence of renewals and apparently never got responses). There is another paper here which goes into a lot of detail as well. Carl Lindberg (talk) 16:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I searched the Gutenberg renewals for Lovecraft and add the complete list of renewals for pre-1949 works mentioning HPL to Author talk:Howard Phillips Lovecraft#Copyright renewals in the Gutenberg Files. It's short, mostly compilations of older material and the earliest publication mentioned in a renewal was in 1939. I looked through the renewals at the Copyright Office under the HP Lovecraft name, and found a number of compilations, including Collected Poems, which claimed to renew the poetry first printed there. (Irrelevant to us, but I also saw The shadow out of time, which Brown University filed in 1995 for copyright on the original sheets (#TXu000682452). Why they accepted that, when Brown couldn't possibly have the rights, I don't know.)
(Prosfilaes, I have a question about your comments on those compilation renewals at the bottom of the Author:Lovecraft talk page. Perhaps you can answer it there. ResScholar (talk) 04:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC))
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
What are the rules on posthumous renewals? Would a separate renewal have been needed? The only piece of fiction the 1981 edition of H. P. Lovecraft: An Annotated Bibliography mentions as having been published posthumously by a periodical that renewed was The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath first published in The Arkham Sampler, which was renewed as a whole (R607400, R607401, and the last issue was renewed too). If Arkham House can make a claim on Lovecraft's copyright, then I would think they could renew Dream-Quest along with the rest of the work they owned in the periodical.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Once a valid renewal occurs, I think that is all that is needed. It's just that the renewal cannot be done by the original publisher if the author dies before the 28 years are up. It sounds like the literary executor for Lovecraft's estate would have had rights to renew, and since he was working with Derleth (or at least letting him do what he wanted), all the Derleth renewals are arguably OK (although if that was a compilation of previously-published works, that renewal would only serve for the compilation itself, and any works first published in that volume). Does sound like The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a copyvio. There may be some question of Derleth actually having rights (as opposed to simply publishing with permission), and those rights maybe going to Lovecraft's heirs instead of Derleth's heirs, but... does look like Derleth's estate did renew some of those works. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Let me see if I understand this correctly, Carl and Prosfilaes: The fourteen works of fiction published in Weird Tales were not renewable by any Weird Tales renewal, because the rights had already been sold to Derleth; but Derleth may have renewed the separate stories through renewals of the 7 or so compilation volumes listed by Prosfilaes at Talk:Author:Lovecraft to which those stories may have belonged? ResScholar (talk) 05:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
They had no rights to renew, because they never had renewal rights in the first place. They only had rights for 28 years after publication, unless they got a re-transfer of rights from Lovecraft's estate after he died (which sounds like it didn't happen). The fact they sold the remaining portion of those 28-year rights to someone else doubly means they had no standing to renew. Sounds like the the literary executor of Lovecraft's estate had the rights to renew stuff though. He was working in concert with Derleth, and I think rights eventually were transferred to Derleth's Arkham House (reading up on the squabbles, it is nothing short of a soap opera). So, it's at least quite arguable that Derleth had standing to renew. Certainly anything previously unpublished which Derleth then used would seem to be a valid claim, and quite probably valid renewal as well. But there has to be a valid renewal of the original WT stories 27 or 28 years after they were published; the fact that Derleth put them in a separate compilation and registered that for copyright wouldn't do it I don't think (such registration is on the compilation itself, not the contents, other than forwards, editorials, and other new content). And of all the registrations and renewals that Prosfilaes found, none of them are in the right time frame to renew the WT stories it would seem. Carl Lindberg (talk) 15:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
These are the 13 other works: The Temple, The Moon Bog, The Outsider, The Horror at Martin’s Beach, The Hound, The Unnamable, Ashes, The Ghost Eater, The Loved-Dead, The Festival, Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs and He. ResScholar (talk) 10:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Author:Robert Ervin Howard

The following discussion is closed:

Exported all 22 works to Canadian Wikilivres:.--Jusjih (talk) 01:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I've finished cataloguing the copyright renewals for Weird Tales and, to my annoyance, I've found a few Robert E. Howard items that are probably still under copyright. This seemed to be the best place to list them. I am moving these to Wikilivres and listing them here as I find them (and as time allows). I actually found some a few months ago but spent some time unsuccessfully looking for some exception. Individual texts follow. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Howard died in 1936, so the publishers would not have had any renewal rights -- they never vested and reverted to Howard's estate, no matter what rights Howard gave them in his lifetime. Unless they re-obtained renewal rights from Howard's estate, the magazine renewals did not serve to renew copyright, I don't think. I would suspect the renewals done by Mrs. P. M. Kuykendall (the apparent holder of the estate) to be the most likely valid ones. Although... those were the ones published posthumously in the first place. If the estate transferred renewal rights the publishers may still have had them, but given that the estate filed renewals, best guess is they only gave 28-year rights initially. Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

A Song Out of Midian

This poem was first published in the April 1930 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1958. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Moon of Skulls

This novella was first published in the June and July 1930 issues of Weird Tales. These issues had their copyrights renewed as a whole by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1958. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Hills of the Dead

This short story was first published in the August 1930 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1958. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Kings of the Night

This short story was first published in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1958. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Wings in the Night

This short story was first published in the July 1932 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Worms of the Earth

This short story was first published in the November 1932 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Check with Paul Herman at Robert-e-Howard.org. He has a detailed list of which Howard stories are and are not in the public domain (http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4rerevised.html) based on research at the Copy Right Office archives in Washington DC. It is possible that even if Steinberg filed the renewal notice, and was the owner of the Weird Tales rights, an "original registration" may not have been submitted by the time of renewal as required. Herman should be able to explain why he classified "Worms of the Earth" as public domain. -James McP

The Phoenix on the Sword

This short story was first published in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Arkham

This poem was first published in the August 1932 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

An Open Window

This poem was first published in the September 1932 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Footfalls Within

This short story was first published in the September 1931 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1959. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Gods of Bal-Sagoth

This short story was first published in the October 1931 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1959. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Black Stone

This short story was first published in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1959. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Dark Man

This short story was first published in the December 1931 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1959. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The Scarlet Citadel

This short story was first published in the January 1933 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Steinberg Press, Inc in 1960. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Tower of the Elephant

This short story was first published in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Blanchard Press, Inc in 1961. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Black Colossus

This short story was first published in the June 1933 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Blanchard Press, Inc in 1961. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Slithering Shadow

This short story was first published in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Blanchard Press, Inc in 1961. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Pool of the Black One

This short story was first published in the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Blanchard Press, Inc in 1961. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Rogues in the House

This short story was first published in the January 1934 issue of Weird Tales. This issue as a whole had its copyright renewed by Blanchard Press, Inc in 1961. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Recompense (Howard)

This poem was first published in the November 1938 issue of Weird Tales. The copyright was renewed by Mrs. P. M. Kuykendall (holder of the Howard estate) in 1965, although she may or may not have done so properly (see "Renewal Problems" in Paul Herman's Another Thought #4. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Singer in the Mist

This poem was first published in the April 1938 issue of Weird Tales. The copyright was renewed by Mrs. P. M. Kuykendall (holder of the Howard estate) in 1965, although she may or may not have done so properly (see "Renewal Problems" in Paul Herman's Another Thought #4. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Pigeons from Hell

This short story was first published in the May 1938 issue of Weird Tales. The copyright was renewed by Mrs. P. M. Kuykendall (holder of the Howard estate) in 1965, although she may or may not have done so properly (see "Renewal Problems" in Paul Herman's Another Thought #4. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

File:TI-billy.jpg, File:TI-blindpew.jpg

The following discussion is closed:

speedily have nothing to do

Please note the copyright on allot (most?) N. C. Wyeth works have been continually renewed by his descendants over the years (example of such here[4] "copyright renewed 1947 Carolyn B. Wyeth") so File:TI-billy.jpg, File:TI-blindpew.jpg, and any other claim that his work is "public domain" may actually be a copyright violation. These and any other use of his work should be checked. Ohioartdude2 (talk) 16:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Those images are on Wikimedia Commons, not Wikisource. (Although they appear at a Wikisource URL, you can see just below the image the text "This file is from Wikimedia Commons and may be used by other projects. The description on its file description page there is shown below.") It is not possible for us at Wikisource to remove images from Commons. But I see that you have correctly started the deletion procedure at Commons (here and here) and if the images are deleted from Commons they will automatically disappear from all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. - Htonl (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
I would add, though, that as they were published in 1911, and therefore before 1923, they are in the public domain regardless of renewals. - Htonl (talk) 19:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Nothing to be done at enWS. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
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