copyright

[piticu]

I have a book published in England in 1937. Does anybody knows if it falls into public domain?
The book is already scanned and ocr-ed and i'm wondering if i can put it on internet…
Thank you for your opinion.

[Misty]

It probably depends on when the author died. Are you planning on going by American copyright law (to distribute on American websites), or a different country's?

[piticu]

It probably depends on when the author died. Are you planning on going by American copyright law (to distribute on American websites), or a different country's?

Actually it's a english translation of a original french book. That's why i think it count's only publisher copyright.
For the sake of discussion, let's say i will publish it via a EU web server.

[rob]

If it's EU, then copyright on a work expires 70 years after the death of the author. In this case you need to know the death date of the author of the English book. As long as the book stays on EU servers, that is the rule to use.

Don't put it on a US server, because then you run into all the weird tests like, was it registered in the US? When was it registered? Was the copyright renewed? And so on.

[Misty]

Who claims copyright for it in the front of the book? That might help you determine if the translator or the publisher held/holds the copyright for that book.

[piticu]

Who claims copyright for it in the front of the book?

That's funny: nobody

aa001_f01_c00_pA03.jpg

(240.25 KiB) Downloaded 323 times

aa001_f01_c00_pA04.jpg

(192.14 KiB) Downloaded 323 times

i apologize for the huge files, i thought the forum software will resize them

[rob]

Well, if it was edited by "the late" George E Brown, it means the editor was already dead in 1937, which would make the expiration date 2007 or earlier. A Google search shows that he died in 1934, making the expiration date 2004. The book doesn't appear to be claimed by a corporate entity, so I think we can safely say that whoever translated it was either George E Brown, or it was someone who did not claim any rights over the translation, or possibly the publisher removed the name of the translator.

The original author of the French edition was Louis Phillipe Clerc, who died in 1959. However, translated works are new works, and therefore the copyright is not based on the original work, but on the new work. This is why L.P. Clerc's death date doesn't matter.

Copyright in anything written by George E Brown expired in 2004, which means that you should be safe publishing this on an EU server.

Note that I'm not a copyright lawyer, or even any sort of lawyer at all. This is just my best effort at helping you!

[piticu]

A big thank you for your efforts!

[piticu]

I've uploaded the searchable pdf onto archive.org. Feel free to help yourself if you're interested about photography.