Some Books that Aren't in the Public Domain (and why)

[annise]

[LauBur]

I've been trying to read up a bit on copyright stuff but I still can figure out if Kevin Lynch's Image of the City is in the public domain yet?http://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/IMG/pdf/1960_Kevin_Lynch_The_Image_of_The_City_book.pdf

This version was copyrighted in 1960. Help?

A book published in 1960 will be out of copyright sometime around January 1, 2056. The person who has it on their website is breaking copyright law by making it freely available.
Sorry!

Alright, thanks for your help on this one!

[Antsy27]

I've been interested in doing the novel by Sarah Fielding (sister of Henry Fielding), "The Adventures of David Simple." This book was published in 1744 - a very early novel, written even before "Tom Jones." It's not on gutenberg.org, for whatever reason. Judging by what I've been reading in this thread, it might not be easy to find a copy that has no modern content, outside of scouring through antiquarian shops. My copy, published in 1998, "retains the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italicization" of the first edition (as well as all 5 different-length dashes). The editorial content is primarily not in but around the text, including introduction, explanatory notes, other footnotes comparing the second edition, which was heavily edited by Henry Fielding, and other scholarly material; but there is also the correction of a few printing errors - typos, a couple of accidentally duplicated or missing words like "it" (some corrections based on a list of errata printed in another early edition). I think even gutenberg.org does some correction of that kind. The actual text, aside from those error corrections, seems to be entirely that of the original first edition. So I don't know if reading the text of this 1998 edition would be allowable, leaving out of course the added notes and other material which aren't part of the novel anyway.

I have been looking through Abebooks and found a company that publishes facsimiles of early editions of this book - but how readable they are is unknown. I also found another company that has this blurb on their version:

"About this Item: Franklin Classics, United States, 2018. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English. Brand new Book. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant."

My question is, would an edition like that be acceptable, if the one I have is not?

Edit: Well, in looking again at the Wikipedia article on the author, I have finally found an on-line 1904 facsimile edition of the book, which I assume would be acceptable. The only problem is that that is the second edition with the extensive changes by Henry Fielding, and I would really prefer to read the original edition if possible. Most likely the Franklin Classics version is based on the second edition as well. Still, this would be better than nothing. It also has a 1904 introduction which I suppose would also be acceptable to include. This edition also doesn't contain the third volume, a sequel completing the story, which is included in the 1998 edition.

[phileasfogg]

I've been interested in doing the novel by Sarah Fielding (sister of Henry Fielding), "The Adventures of David Simple." This book was published in 1744. It's not on gutenberg.org, for whatever reason. Judging by what I've been reading in this thread, it might not be easy to find a copy that has no modern content, outside of scouring through antiquarian shops. My copy, published in 1998, "retains the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italicization" of the first edition (as well as all 5 different-length dashes). The editorial content is primarily not in but around the text, including introduction, explanatory notes, other footnotes comparing the second edition, which was heavily edited by Henry Fielding, and other scholarly material; but there is also the correction of a few printing errors - typos, a couple of accidentally duplicated or missing words like "it" (some corrections based on a list of errata printed in another early edition). I think even gutenberg.org does some correction of that kind. The actual text, aside from those error corrections, seems to be entirely that of the original first edition. So I don't know if reading the text of this 1998 edition would be allowable, leaving out of course the added notes and other material which aren't part of the novel anyway.

I have been looking through Abebooks and found a company that publishes facsimiles of early editions of this book - but how readable they are is unknown. I also found another company that has this blurb on their version:

"About this Item: Franklin Classics, United States, 2018. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English. Brand new Book. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant."

My question is, would an edition like that be acceptable, if the one I have is not?

https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=tIhbAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=VctDAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
I´m not a administrator but this edition might be useful

[Antsy27]

Thanks - yes, I found that after I made my initial entry. That should work if nothing else does! Looks like volume 1 is the first edition and volume 2 is the second edition.

[TriciaG]

Reading from the Google Books version would be easiest for us. If you really want to read from the hard copy you have, we'd have to double check the copyright on it by having you take a scan or picture of the title page(s) and copyright notice page(s), put them in a zip file, and upload them to us so we could double check it. However, like I said, if you're okay with reading the Google Books version, that would be better. (Ugh - the Google ones have the old typeface with the long S.)

P.S. This one is a cleaner scan, 1822, with "normal" typeface: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.31960075

[MaryAnnSpiegel]

P.S. This one is a cleaner scan, 1822, with "normal" typeface: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.31960075

Same edition, different source: https://books.google.com/books?id=cH5KAQAAMAAJ

MaryAnn

[Adalwolf313]

Hello,

I'm fairly new to the LibriVox forum, so hopefully I'm asking my question in the right place

I want to ask a question that has certainly been asked before, but I'm not having much luck finding a recent example. Basically, I'm wanting to know if LV would be able to do a collection of the complete solo fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. I keep hearing different things about whether or not all of his solo stories are in the PD here in the US, so that's why I'm bringing it up here. I found a wikisource page (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Howard_Phillips_Lovecraft) with links to almost all of his works. I haven't had a chance to check everything yet, but the impression that I got was that all of the titles with a link (the ones in blue) are PD works. The ones I did check, at least, had a PD statement from the wiki at the bottom of the page.

Is this a source we can trust for authority on what is PD? I know Project Gutenberg is preferred, but my personal inclination is to trust wikisource as a... *ahem* source. Plus, I've seen a lot of print and audio adaptations of his solo (and some of his collaborative) work spring up recently, which further leads me to believe that most of his stuff is PD by now.

Thanks!

[TriciaG]

Wikisource isn't a trustworthy text source. People can upload texts there and SAY they're PD, but no one double checks that claim. And Lovecraft's works are a gigantic minefield, so we are careful with them.

For post-1924 (now) publications, we only trust Gutenberg and HathiTrust (and we're a little leery of HathiTrust also, since we've recently seen cases where they say something is PD when it isn't). HERE is our text policy.

All the clearly PD works of Lovecraft are recorded already, but one is welcome to do another collection of his works with new audio. We call it "choice of voice".

[Adalwolf313]

Wikisource isn't a trustworthy text source. People can upload texts there and SAY they're PD, but no one double checks that claim. And Lovecraft's works are a gigantic minefield, so we are careful with them.

For post-1924 (now) publications, we only trust Gutenberg and HathiTrust (and we're a little leery of HathiTrust also, since we've recently seen cases where they say something is PD when it isn't). HERE is our text policy.

All the clearly PD works of Lovecraft are recorded already, but one is welcome to do another collection of his works with new audio. We call it "choice of voice".

Ah, too bad about Wikisource. It's always better to play it safe with stuff like this. Thanks so much for the reply!

[weezer]

I have a book entitled "The Legal Rights of Women" by Lemuel H. Foster, copyright 1913.
Do you think it might be interesting enough to add to the Librivox Library? Thanks. Weezer

[TriciaG]

I have a book entitled "The Legal Rights of Women" by Lemuel H. Foster, copyright 1913.
Do you think it might be interesting enough to add to the Librivox Library? Thanks. Weezer

If you're willing to record it, then it'll be interesting enough. Our goal is to make all PD books into audiobooks, not just the interesting ones.
It's also on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/cu31924018794630/page/n5/mode/2up
I wouldn't recommend it as a first solo, but maybe you're really interested in the topic so it wouldn't be as challenging for you.
You could also suggest it as a group project for someone to coordinate, or consider coordinating it yourself: https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=How_To_Become_A_Book_Coordinator

[Bookworm360]

When does The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings(or Tolkien’s work in general) go into the public domain?

[KevinS]

When does The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings(or Tolkien’s work in general) go into the public domain?

More than a decade from now.

[mightyfelix]

Yes. 2033 for The Hobbit, if I'm not mistaken. And the Lord of the Rings was published several years after that.

I'm not sure what minor works of his were published earlier, and I don't have the time right more to look it up. We do actually have an early poem: https://librivox.org/author/1536 It was published while he was still a student at Oxford.