Google book settlement -- DENIED

[Ken Hirsch]

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Ken Hirsch <kenhirsch at ftml.net> wrote:
> > Works published before 1923 are in the public domain.
>
> Apparently, this is fact is of consequence only in the case of works
> *that have not been reprinted since then*, even in those cases in
> which the reprint is now out of print, too. Indeed, the stricture
> preventing Google Books from providing so much as a snippet holds even
> when the reprint has been merely "forthcoming" for over a decade and a
> half.
>
> --
> -Wilson
>

That's not my understanding. I believe that everything published in the U.S.
before 1923 is definitely in the public domain and Google can do what they
want with it. Essentially everything published outside the U.S. before 1923
is in the public domain here and, mostly, elsewhere.

There were provisions in the proposed settlement about classifying books as
in-print/out-of-print and that did include reprints, but this determination
did not apply to public domain works.  For example:

"(1) In-Copyright Principal Work.

If a Book’s Principal Work is not in the public domain under the Copyright
Act in the United States and that Book is Commercially Available, then any
other Book that has the same Principal Work (such as a previous edition) is
also deemed to be Commercially Available, whether or not such other Book is
at the time in question also Commercially Available."


There are certainly 19th-century books available freely on Google Books
today that also have reprints available.

Ken

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