Public Domain question [ANSWERED]

[jfschuurman]

I would like to read a series of lectures that were given at Princeton Divinity School in 1899. ("Lectures on Calvinism" by Abraham Kuyper). Those lectures are not in the Gutenberg Project collection. They have been published a couple of times in book form. One the published books claims that the work is protected by copyright. Is it permissible for me to simply choose a print or online edition of the lectures that do NOT have such a claim to copyright in order to read it?

[JayKitty76]

Any copy you choose needs to have a clearly marked section that says it was published on or before 1923.
You may need to check with an admin to see...sometimes they check it for you, if it's an online text.
Legally, any books published on or before 1923 is public domain, so perhaps it was the edition of the copyrighted book that made it under copyright. You need to make sure the edition of it is public domain, too, before you can use it.
Does that answer your question?

[jfschuurman]

Hi JayKitty76. Thanks. My Kindle edition that I (of course) got from Amazon simply says "Six Lectures Delivered at Princeton University, 1898 under the auspices of the L. P. Stone Foundation." Nothing about copyright.
I'd like to just assume that is all I'd need. I maybe need to check further.
How is your Huckleberry Finn project coming? I enjoyed reading a couple chapters of the Tom Sawyer but have no time at present. I'll look in a month and if Huck still needs readers I'll see what I can do.

Please forgive a personal question: you state that because of the offensive language and because of personal convictions (I see you are a sister in Christ i.e. the JN 3:16) you don't want to read Huck Finn but yet you are MC for it. Please explain to me how one involvement is substantively different from the other. I'm not wanting to challenge your convictions or right to do whatever you want but am just curious about how you make the distinction.

Thanks,

John Schuurman (jfschuurman)

[annise]

Kindle is not a trusted source.
If it isn't on PG , you need to find a scanned copy somewhere - Archive and Haithi are good starting places
Archive has a heap of books from him , mainly in Dutch but including this https://archive.org/details/calvinismsixlect00kuyp/page/n9 which seems to be what you want, I'd need to check and you could try Haithi (it doesn't always let me see because I am not in the USA.

Anne

[annise]

Haithi has the same copy and so you can go ahead safely reading either Archive or Haithi and give one of them as your link

Anne

[Elizabby]

Please forgive a personal question: you state that because of the offensive language and because of personal convictions (I see you are a sister in Christ i.e. the JN 3:16) you don't want to read Huck Finn but yet you are MC for it. Please explain to me how one involvement is substantively different from the other.

Obviously the question wasn't addressed to me, but this issue has come up a few times before. Most people would see a distinction between the words they say themselves (as a reader) and being a kind of "organiser" of a book which happens to have a few taboo words in it. So if we think about Huck Finn in particular, there are three levels of involvement: the readers (who need to be comfortable reading the "N" word out loud), the readers who choose not to read chapters with those words in but are happy to be involved in the book in general, and the admin people (BC, DPL and MC) who are organising the team effort but not actually reading for it at all.

I would say each level is different and distinct, and each person needs to draw the line where they are comfortable. In my projects, I've had an editor avoid editing a chapter with objectionable content in it but be happy to edit other chapters in the same book. I've had readers withdraw from a part or from a book altogether because of certain words. And of course it is impossible to know how many people quietly decline to participate in certain projects for a variety of reasons.

That's the nice thing about a volunteer community - everyone is free to choose their own level of engagement. What people are NOT free to do is to edit the text to avoid certain words (that's a no-no here) or to impose their values on others. For example we had a person a while ago object to content that other volunteers had in their signature line at the bottom of their posts, but this request was not considered appropriate.

So to return to the original point, I personally don't see anything inconsistent in personally avoiding speaking certain words, but in participating in a project where others (who may not be Christians or who may not share our convictions for whatever reasons) choose to speak those exact same words.

[annise]

Obviously, there are different views on that, and that is fine this is LibriVox but having once unwittingly BCed a book that had a chapter of what I think was unbelievable cruelty to circus animals I would never knowingly contribute in any way directly to anything that thought wanton cruelty was acceptable. I feel responsible for what I make available. After all these years it still upsets me that I did.

Anne

Just to make things absolutely clear - I don't want this to be a flame war, if you want to contribute be nice.
I don't think I am necessarily right
I don't think Beth is necessarily wrong
I don't think John is wrong for asking the question
I don't think Jay is necessarily wrong for making the decision she made.
I believe we all have the right to make decisions we are comfortable with as long as it doesn't affect others

[JayKitty76]

Please forgive a personal question: you state that because of the offensive language and because of personal convictions (I see you are a sister in Christ i.e. the JN 3:16) you don't want to read Huck Finn but yet you are MC for it. Please explain to me how one involvement is substantively different from the other.

Obviously the question wasn't addressed to me, but this issue has come up a few times before. Most people would see a distinction between the words they say themselves (as a reader) and being a kind of "organiser" of a book which happens to have a few taboo words in it. So if we think about Huck Finn in particular, there are three levels of involvement: the readers (who need to be comfortable reading the "N" word out loud), the readers who choose not to read chapters with those words in but are happy to be involved in the book in general, and the admin people (BC, DPL and MC) who are organising the team effort but not actually reading for it at all.

I would say each level is different and distinct, and each person needs to draw the line where they are comfortable. In my projects, I've had an editor avoid editing a chapter with objectionable content in it but be happy to edit other chapters in the same book. I've had readers withdraw from a part or from a book altogether because of certain words. And of course it is impossible to know how many people quietly decline to participate in certain projects for a variety of reasons.

That's the nice thing about a volunteer community - everyone is free to choose their own level of engagement. What people are NOT free to do is to edit the text to avoid certain words (that's a no-no here) or to impose their values on others. For example we had a person a while ago object to content that other volunteers had in their signature line at the bottom of their posts, but this request was not considered appropriate.

So to return to the original point, I personally don't see anything inconsistent in personally avoiding speaking certain words, but in participating in a project where others (who may not be Christians or who may not share our convictions for whatever reasons) choose to speak those exact same words.

Obviously, there are different views on that, and that is fine this is LibriVox but having once unwittingly BCed a book that had a chapter of what I think was unbelievable cruelty to circus animals I would never knowingly contribute in any way directly to anything that thought wanton cruelty was acceptable. I feel responsible for what I make available. After all these years it still upsets me that I did.

Anne

Just to make things absolutely clear - I don't want this to be a flame war, if you want to contribute be nice.
I don't think I am necessarily right
I don't think Beth is necessarily wrong
I don't think John is wrong for asking the question
I don't think Jay is necessarily wrong for making the decision she made.
I believe we all have the right to make decisions we are comfortable with as long as it doesn't affect others

I PM'ed John already. By all means, it was fine with me that he asked- it made me carefully consider my true beliefs and values, so no, John was definitely OK asking that question.
Anne and Beth- I agree with you both. Others may have different views, but I appreciate Anne's sorting everything out, to bring a little closure to this question.

[jfschuurman]

Thanks for these thoughtful replies. Leaving all such matters up to the individual conscience can serve well in a community like this one if not so much in the legal (or theological ) world. (Driving the get-away car for a back-robbery makes you just as guilty as the trigger man).
One of my former careers was high-school English teacher. I taught Huck Finn in the late 60's but think it would be (should be ) not allowed today.
It is a great book for the many reasons already stated.

[jfschuurman]

Thanks Annise,
The link that you provided will work great and is the identical text to what I have on my Kindle reader. I believe I can proceed.