Book Published in 1923

GodsDreamer · Post by **GodsDreamer** » May 21st, 2018, 9:05 am

Hello all! I am interested in recording Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery as a solo project, though I'm not quite sure yet if I'll have the time to do it, as I am a college student and will be working at a camp this summer... but anyways, my question is this: Since Emily of New Moon was published in 1923, it should come into public domain January 1st, 2019 if I understand the laws correctly. If I have the time, would I be able to start recording the book before that date, since there is no way I could finish the recording before the book becomes public domain? Thanks in advance for any advice on this!

Post by **TriciaG** » May 21st, 2018, 9:14 am

You could start recording it, but I suppose that technically that would be breaking copyright law. It depends on how law-abiding you are.

We wouldn't set up the project and you couldn't upload files and get feedback from us until January 1.

Question: Why would you need to finish recording it before January 1? There's no deadline (unless it's a self-imposed one).

P.S. Text source would be an issue. An online version might be hard to find, and whatever edition you read from would need to be clearly a 1923 version and not an edited edition that may incur a new copyright.

Cori · Post by **Cori** » May 21st, 2018, 11:15 am

Agreeing with Tricia throughout. There's a PG-AU version that could be used from the start of next year, I think.

GodsDreamer · Post by **GodsDreamer** » May 21st, 2018, 9:06 pm

TriciaG wrote: ↑May 21st, 2018, 9:14 am
Question: Why would you need to finish recording it before January 1? There's no deadline (unless it's a self-imposed one).

P.S. Text source would be an issue. An online version might be hard to find, and whatever edition you read from would need to be clearly a 1923 version and not an edited edition that may incur a new copyright.

Thank you (Tricia and Cori) for your input on this!

Just to clarify, I was not saying that I would have to finish it by January 1, in fact quite the opposite. What I meant to say was that, because I would NOT be finished with the entire recording by January 1, the book would be in the public domain before the recording became public, so it would never be available for listening until after the book was in the public domain. But it makes perfect sense that LibriVox could not start a project unless the book in question is already in the public domain.

If I found a hard copy of the book which was clearly a 1923 version, could I use that for my source text?

Post by **TriciaG** » May 22nd, 2018, 5:52 am

Ohhh, okay. That makes more sense!

If I found a hard copy of the book which was clearly a 1923 version, could I use that for my source text?

You could. What we would do is ask you to scan or take a clear picture of the title page and copyright page (usually the page after the title page), so we can verify the edition. Put them in a Zip file and upload them to either the zz-nonprojects folder (since you wouldn't have an MC yet), or if you do have an MC, to their folder.

Post by **annise** » May 23rd, 2018, 3:58 am

Could I suggest , as you have limited time that as you've only ever recorded a few minutes so far , that you try a longer chapter out of a readers wanted project so you can get a better idea of how long the whole book would take to record and whether you really enjoy recording or not , at the same time honing your recording skills. As I said , this is only a suggestion, but is most likely to get you the result you would like to have.

Anne

GodsDreamer · Post by **GodsDreamer** » May 23rd, 2018, 7:55 am

annise wrote: ↑May 23rd, 2018, 3:58 am Could I suggest , as you have limited time that as you've only ever recorded a few minutes so far , that you try a longer chapter out of a readers wanted project
Anne

Anne,
Yes, I would want to do that anyways before actually starting on such a big project. But I wanted to check into the possibility of reading Emily of New Moon, as it is a book I really enjoyed!