Subj : Re: Family History
To   : JAY EMRIE
From : Alan Zisman
Date : Sun Oct 02 2005 11:55 pm

-=> JAY EMRIE wrote to ALAN ZISMAN <=-

 JE> By the way, I have been looking a bit on copyright laws and found the
 JE> following:

 JE> http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

 JE> 1790: books could be copyrighted for 14 yrs + another 14 year extension

 JE> 1831: now 28 years + another 14 year extension

 JE> 1909: 28 years + another 28 year extension

 JE> 1976: all copyrights (even previous copyrights) life of author plus 50
 JE> years.

 JE> Since the author of my book was likely in his 40s (at least) when the
 JE> book was written/published in 1890, that would mean the copyright on my
 JE> book (IF it had ever been copyrighted - which it hadn't) would have
 JE> expired sometime around 1980: 1890 plus est. 40 more of his life = 1930
 JE> plus another 50 years of extended copyright = 1980.

If the book was published in 1890, it would have entered the public domain 28 
years later in 1918 whether the author was alive or not. As well, in 1890 in 
the US (unlike most other countries), to get copyright protection a work had to 
be registered with the US government, and a copyright date and (c) symbol had 
to be included... so it sounds like your book is safely in the public domain 
for both of those reasons.

 JE> I didn't research much past that. I thought it was unnecessary. I was
 JE> just curious.

 JE> When we used to present the San Antonio International Photographic
 JE> Exhibition slide pictures we used copyrighted music to accompany the
 JE> slide presentation. As long as there was NO charge for admission and
 JE> was nonprofit we did not have to pay any royalties.

I don't believe that's a general rule, though the copyright holder of that 
particular piece may have been OK with it. Lots of public performances are not 
monitored by the performance rights organizations-- who tend to focus on radio 
stations and the major commercial venues. Your typical bar band, performing 
cover tunes in a small club generally ignores such fees; larger venues pay 
blanket fees to the performance rights organizations in lieu of detailed 
reporting.

The various organizations then have complex formulae that end up producing 
royalty cheques for their members-- which may or may not have any relation to 
reality. Similarly, I'm a member of 'Access Copyright', a Canadian organization 
that negotiates with universities, school systems, public libraries, etc to 
license them allowing photocopying of written works by Access Copyright 
members. (I qualify as a technology writer)... organizations negotiating 
licenses get blanket permission and don't need to provide detailed records of 
what articles have been copied. I get an annual royalty cheque and am 
relatively happy... but I have no idea how many of my articles are actually 
used in these ways (though I've gotten feedback over the years indicating that 
at some things I've written have shown up as University-level handouts).

 JE> What really struck me, however, was how much simpler and easier the
 JE> work of the family (there were at least 50 family members - judging
 JE> from the preface - involved in the compilation of the book at the time)
 JE> would have been had computers been available at that time! EVERYTHING
 JE> was likely hand written - the typewriter was in its infancy. I wonder
 JE> just how long the printers/typesetters worked on it before it was
 JE> actually printed? It was sent to the printers in 1890 and actually
 JE> printed in 1891.

The desktop-publishing revolution of the mid-1980s, with the enabling 
technologies of personal computers + graphic user interfaces + laser printers + 
DTP software was a HUGE change. I was involved in a a monthly newspaper project 
in the late 1970s/early 1980s-- just prior to this 'revolution' and even though 
it was produced with photolithography-- a major step towards speed and 
convenience compared to the hot lead type of earlier years, getting the paper 
out involved sending typewritten copy to be typeset in long columns; we laid 
these out by hand, using hot wax to attach them to broadsize-sheets of paper, 
then noted errors; we sent out the corrections and when they came back (the 
next day), we cut these up and waxed them over top of the originals... 
hopefully, the new word didn't fall off or get crooked before the page was 
photographed in order to produce the lithography plate.

Now it all gets done on someone's desktop computer.
.... Inet mail to: alan at zisman dot ca
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