Books themselves in the public domain as well as recordings?

[dominictreis]

Hi,
I am new to LibriVox, but have used Gutenberg.org as a source of public domain books for a long time. I have noticed that some of my favorite books, ("Outlaws of Ravenhurst" by Sr. M. Imelda Wallace, and "Priest on Horseback, by Eva Betz" which are not on Gutenberg, are in fact, recorded on LibriVox. Does this mean that the books themselves are in the public domain in the US? I have tried to do copyright research in the past, and have not been very successful. I would appreciate it if someone could help me out on this. I've been hoping that these are in the public domain, but just don't know enough about copyright research to verify it.
Thank you very much!

[SweetPea]

Yes, all books recorded on Librivox are Public Domain in the US. Many recordings use Gutenberg as a source, but it is not the only place to find public domain books - you just have to be more careful with making sure that they really are because not everywhere does as much copyright checking as Gutenberg does.

For those particular books, it seems like Maria read from a hard copy; this is done occasionally when there is no online text available and the reader owns a pre-1923 copy.

Generally, anything published before 1923 is public domain in the US. If you're outside of the US, you should also abide by the law of your country - in many countries copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author.

Hope this helps!
Rachel

[dominictreis]

Thank you. That helps quite a bit. All the research I have been able to do shows that "Outlaws of Ravenhurst" was copyrighted in 1923. I was under the impression that anything pre 1923 is in the public domain, but anything copyrighted in 1923 is not? Am I wrong? Of course, if the copyright was not renewed, it could be in the public domain already.

[TriciaG]

Both Priest on Horseback and Outlaws of Ravenhurst went through the PG copyright clearance process and got a clearance key. Apparently they haven't been made into an e-book there yet, though.

[dominictreis]

Alright, thanks so much!

[dominictreis]

By the way, does anyone know if Gutenberg releases a list of books that pass their clearance process? If so, where could I access that?
Thanks again xD

[annise]

I think you'd have to ask them that It doesn't really help you unless you have a pre1923 hard copy in your hand . The clearance would be for that , not for any newer printings which may or may not be the same. We have had to take down books where the soloist decided to read from a hard copy they had which turned out to differ from the pre 1923 one

Anne

[RuthieG]

By the way, does anyone know if Gutenberg releases a list of books that pass their clearance process? If so, where could I access that?
Thanks again xD

David Price's list of works in progress is at http://pglaf.org/~ccx074/gutip.html. It includes those already released as e-books by Project Gutenberg, and also those which have been copyright cleared but not yet transcribed.

Ruth

[annise]

However the list does say

NOTE: Copyright clearances older than 03 Nov 2011 are excluded.

and Priest on Horseback and Outlaws of Ravenhurst were recorded in 2010.

Anne

[m8b1]

There was a list that did include stuff before the 2011 date - I remember seeing things I got Rule 6 clearance on from before that date on it. I'll see if I have the link, but it more than likely was the same page that you provided, Anne.

I checked my email records, and both Priest on Horseback and Outlaws of Ravenhurst were cleared in 2010.

[RuthieG]

Previous versions of the list may be found by searching on the Wayback Machine like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140901000000*/http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html. e.g. 2014 versions show clearances after 19 Jul 2009 and 2013 versions show clearances after 02 Jan 2008.

Ruth

[DACSoft]

Previous versions of the list may be found by searching on the Wayback Machine like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140901000000*/http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html. e.g. 2014 versions show clearances after 19 Jul 2009 and 2013 versions show clearances after 02 Jan 2008.

Ruth

Tip:
Using Ruth's link you get a calendar view of the different versions. If you select a version from July 18, 2010 or earlier, you get the entire list to the date referenced on the web page. That is, there was no 5-year limitation on the reports on or before that date. Of course, clearances obtained more than 5 years ago, with no ebook produced on them, will in all probability have a low chance of getting produced, which I believe is why PG put in the report limitation (and the report was getting huge ).

FWIW,
Don (DP member)

[annise]

Thanks Don
A question - does the list mean they actually have a scan of the whole book that could be processed further ?
Or is it a list of books that could be processed if someone gave them a scan of it ?
And who actually does the OCRs ?

Anne

[Peter Why]

Anne, when I was involved in DP, before I started here, I used to watch out for interesting pre-1923 books in second-hand bookshops and street markets. I'd scan the title and copright pages and submit them, get out-of-copyright authorisation, then scan the rest of the book. Then OCR it (there's an excellent OCR application, Abby Finereader, which I bought an out-of-date version of cheaply), convert to the file format needed by DP and upload it. [Finereader was quite fun: it even has a learning mode, where you correct its interpretation of the text, and it remembers ... it was very useful for separating "f" from the "long s" in an old blackletter mathematics text.]

I still have quite a few books that got to the authorisation stage, but that I never scanned further (for a start, there's an old copy of Whittacker's Almanac that's over a thousand pages long, just waiting for me to pick it up again!). These will have gone onto one of those lists, but may have been dropped since.

The scanning takes so long that I may not get back to them.

Two books that I scanned, OCR'd, took through the DP proofing process and submitted to Gutenberg ... I then read for Librivox: "Assaying" and "Highways and Byways in Sussex". It was fun being involved all the way through.

Peter

[DACSoft]

Hi Anne,

My apologies for not responding sooner. I neglected to subscribe to the topic, so missed the subsequent posts.

Thanks to Peter for responding to your questions. I'll just add:

Example

...
Abbott, Jacob (14nov1803-31oct1879)
Alexander the Great: Makers of History Series - released 30624
The Boy’s own Workshop; or, the Young Carpenters - Copyright cleared 30 Dec 2011
...

For any item listed with "release" and a number, not only was the book cleared by PG, but an ebook was submitted to PG, who assigned a book number to it when posted.

For any item with "Copyright cleared" and a date, the book was cleared by PG, but an ebook has not yet been submitted under that clearance number (sometimes there is more than one clearance for a title, but it's highly recommend by PG that ebook producers check the list before submitting a new clearance).

Many (most) of the books submitted to PG are from DP, but there are other independent producers (individuals and groups) who supply ebooks to PG. In some cases, the process from copyright clearance to final submission, can take a number of years.

Like Peter, I enjoy being involved in all components of a book project from submitting a clearance, scanning, and OCR, through managing, proofreading and formatting the project in DP, through post-processing (putting the ebook together) and submission to PG, to finally solo recording the book in LV. Of the 90+ books I've produced for PG, I've completed 4 solo recordings, and have 2 in progress, so far. I guess I have a lot of recording to catch up on.

Don

Thanks Don
A question - does the list mean they actually have a scan of the whole book that could be processed further ?
Or is it a list of books that could be processed if someone gave them a scan of it ?
And who actually does the OCRs ?

Anne