"Putting Rules into the Public Domain" Topic

I was surprised recently to see the Crossfire-WWII group on IO hosting a discussion to take that ruleset and put it into the public domain, making it downloadable for free.

This is in blatant disregard to the rights of the author and the publisher. (Crossfire is not out of print!)

It all depends on who is in the group. If the owners are part of the decision, they should have the final say.

Once rules have passed their prime, free downloads may keep interest going and the product, thru supplements, alive.

Copyright resides with the author. Only the author can make any decision to place a set of rules into the public domain.

Having said that, there is a free set of rules here:
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that looks to me like a rip-off of Crossfire …

Let's try to get our terms straight.

"Out of print" has nothing to do with the matter legally. The most common pair of conditions for any English-language book is "under copyright" and "out of print." This covers, I understand, about 75% of anything ever published in the language.

Since the advent of the Mickey Mouse Copyright Law, in the US and Europe copyright extends 90 years from the death of the author, which means almost every set of wargame rules later than H.G. Wells is still under copyright. I do not know of any mechanism by which a copyright holder can legally change that, though of course he can refuse to enforce the copyright.

And "downloadable for free" is not the same thing as being in the public domain. Ivanhoe is in the public domain. Anyone who feels like it can edit the text, insert graphic violence & sex or do anything else he feels like--even asserting copyright over the altered text. Scot's heirs have no legal recourse. All of the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories except perhaps the final volume are in the public domain, which means people can produce "Elementary" "Sherlock" and any number of books and stories without permission of the Conan Doyle estate. Alter and attempt to resell a "downloadable for free" version of "Crossfire" and the copyright holder will still have every right to sue you.

As MajorB has pointed out, any decision regarding the rules remains solely with whoever holds the copyright. Free does not equal public domain. For example GHQ makes the pdf versions of some of their rules available as a free download, while the hardcopies must be purchased. At no point have they relenquished their copyright.

If you want to rewrite/reformat a set of rules to suit yourself and for your own use, then go ahead and knock yourself out. But if you distribute that version to the general public, even if for free, you have violated the copyright and will end up in court eventually.

An interesting discussion (narrative?) on how copyright varies from country to country here, from Mark Steyn. Yes. THAT Mark Steyn.
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It shows how copyright can be sold by the originator, and then becomes a property to be disposed of like any other property.
Fortunately for Solomon Linda's heirs, Commonwealth practices are different from in the US.

For the Crossfire story, it boils down to how or if the original author controls it. Wargamers tend to be a bit laissez faire about such things. ("But it's out of print! I want it! WAAAAAGH!") TMP has always been rather strict about that.

Thank you, John. But (a) what are book copyrights like now that you're out from under the thumb of the European Parliament? And (b) what about "orphan" works? Still in the span of modern expanded copyrights, but no one knows who holds said copyright. I'm steadily paying outrageous prices for 40-70 year old paperbacks because there are no current or even more recent editions--and the only reason I can see no publisher reprints books going for those outrageous prices is that no one knows who can authorize a new printing.

I don't think anyone has solved the problems associated with century-long copyrights yet.

+1 Pinepenbrink

Thousands of paperbacks, out of print for many decades, no longer being printed and being lost as copyright laws prevent that from happening if someone was interested to do so.

As far as wargaming rules go, I've over the years to a number of living authors with rules published last in the 1970s that I was willing to recreate their rules (I bought and own them) as PDFs so they could be either sold cheaply or for free. All, with all do rights, told me that no, they'd plan to republish them themselves. I quietly left and scrapped any idea of such work.

How many fan written and published zines on the hobby from 50-60 years ago are now lost and will never be part of our history? Same with early rules that I have as purple mimeographed copies, typed written on onion paper, etc.

Copyright is legal and should never be abused, but I still think we're losing something important.

My 2p; keeping in mind I'm not offering legal advice and the law differs from country to country except to the extent it's controlled by treaty. The following is based on personal experience, some recent reading and some research I did for a client more than 25 years ago.

First of all, the author of a book or other written work might or might not hold the copyright. The simplest such case is work for hire. Under some circumstances when an author is hired to write a book or article and paid for what he wrote, the copyright belongs to the person or entity that paid him for that work. So, for example, West Publishing Co. holds the copyright for the chapter I wrote for its treatise on real estate law. On the other hand, I specifically reserved copyright on most of my other published legal writing. Oh, and works produced by the U.S. government are not copyrightable which is why so many manuals, staff rides and the like are freely available.

As for when copyrights expire; that can depend on all kinds of stuff. For example, the act of 1976 (and the "Mickey Mouse" act of 1998) greatly extended the copyright period and, IIRC, tolled the expiration of copyright while it was under consideration. But the copyright periods before the changes were (IIRC) 28 years with a renewal of another 28 years (the requirement for renewal was eliminated in 1992) and so works published before the effective date of the '76 act might have expired if not properly and timely renewed. This, I believe, is why so many of H. Beam Piper's books and stories are available on Gutenberg and the like; Piper died without renewing them and if the copyrights had been transferred to the publishers then they apparently forgot to renew or didn't think it worth the effort-I don't know if it was common in Piper's time (1950s and early 60s) to sell all rights when the story or book was sold. I do know that Poul Anderson did retain his rights and his estate has been aggressive about policing republication of his stuff.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that lots of magazine and pulp publishers and writers were careless, or simply didn't care, about republication and copyright-except some such as Anderson-but I don't know although I've observed quite a bit off stuff published after 1926 (the generally agreed date I believe for which everything published before is in public domain under U.S. law) available in Gutenberg and the like.

So, for example, Burroughs' Tarzan books are probably in public domain by now, but the name Tarzan is still a registered trademark and the Burroughs estate has historically been very aggressive about enforcing its trademark rights-which didn't stop pulp authors from creating all sorts of copies but even Jove nods. Anyway, trademark law is different. For one thing, it doesn't expire through passage of time but can be lost through nonuse-Coca-Cola used to be very aggressive about policing its rights and probably still is.

For interesting copyright and trademark stories look up the copyright disputes over Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (including the 1960s competing editions; Ballentine and Ace IIRC) and the story of Bill Boyd's turnaround from has been to TV hero.

Dennis, quite a number of the ERB copyrights were not renewed. (It was an administrative oversight: they knew better.) You can spot those books because they had BOTH Ace and Ballantine editions, before Ace & Ballantine agreed to divide Burroughs between them. Ace used to be notorious for looking for copyright loopholes.

But one of the problems is that it is very difficult to tell whether that copyright was renewed at the 28 year mark. Copyright is a mess--and possibly intentionally so. I know how to straighten it out--a modest five cent "property tax" on claimed copyright, and an on-line register would work nicely--but I don't think our lawmakers have any interest in the straightening.

we play the game. considering CF to be in public domain untill further notice

I'm surprised the Crossfire mods are allowing the discussion, but I don't think Arty or OMM are even in the group.

Robert; I hadn't realized that ERB kept writing Tarzan books that late in life-not really a fan, although I went through as phase in the 60s when I read a lot of John Carter and Carson Napier in cheap reprint editions available then. Still, at least 10 or so Tarzans are out of copyright regardless of renewals and, after a quick check, maybe the same or more are available on Gutenberg. Likely more can be found on archive dot org, it tends to be a bit more casual about honoring copyrights in my experience. Also, Amazon has 16 of the Tarzans available as kindle books for anywhere from free to $5 USD, and it looks like several more are available to borrow from the online library at archive dot org.

In my experience in the past 20 years or so almost all good stuff, and an awful lot of crap as memorialized by Ted Sturgeon, can be found with a bit of searching. I've found almost everything I've looked for over the years; sometimes it's taken some time-particularly in the old days when we had to physically visit used book stores (it took me forever to find Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper, and when I did it was crap)-I spent days wandering Acres of Books in Long Beach. Some pulp stuff is available from archive dot org in copies of the original magazines or books-I'm not sure of the extent of the pulp and popular collections there as I found what I wanted and stopped looking-from my superficial observations they have a wide variety of stuff from Capt'n Billy's Whizbang through the Black Mask to Analog.

As for copyright uncertainties limiting republication-I'm sure it happens for some obscure authors or those that are thought to have a relatively limited market-albeit I suspect the widespread use of ebooks has greatly reduced the size of the market needed to attract republication-just look at all the very cheap collections of old and somewhat obscure science fiction available as kindle books on Amazon. The Burroughs Estate used to be aggressive about marketing its products in Tarzan and others, so if there were a sufficiently large market to attract its interest I suspect it would license republication of ERB's books.

The New England Science Fiction Association Press and Gollancz Books have been reprinting a variety of old science fiction since, maybe, the 90s. And quite a few very small companies have been reprinting old and obscure mysteries for 30 years or longer. Also, it seems like every few years one or another of the mainstream publishers reprints series of books by older authors; just off the top of my head I can remember republications of Craig Rice mysteries, old Dan Turner Hollywood Detective mysteries, James Schmitz science fiction novels and stories, Richard Sale mysteries and lots more. There are also pulp reprint houses specializing in things like the Shadow, Secret Service Operator #5 , the Green Llama and so on-though these tend to be a bit pricy. And of course the Scientology people have been reprinting lots of Ron Hubbard's old stuff.

Quite a bit of what I look for is old non-fiction. Here there are few if any copyright problems, although with some older non-english books like Clausewitz or Machiavelli the old translations are naff so you might be well advised to pay more for a newer and better translation (Paret for Clausewitz, Mansfield for Machiavelli). Here there are lots of reprint houses serving the market-Morningside, Wordsworth, Gregg Revivals, Haskell House, Konecky & Konecky, etc-although it would not surprise me a bit to learn that part of the non-fiction reprint market has moved from hard copy to ebooks.

Sometimes you find things in odd places; for example, I've found some Brit 18th and 19th century histories of the EIC in India available in cheap reprint editions from Indian printers-they used to be cheap as chips, including shipping from India-but the past few years the shipping costs have increased-the stuff I bought was all originally published in 1900 or earlier so I didn't worry about copyright.

Anyway, if there is something specific you are looking for perhaps I can help.

Thank you Dennis. In a way, I agree: you can find almost everything--if you don't choke on paying $100 USD and up for 60 year old paperbacks, and if you don't care that the paper is disintegrating. I just sent a box of 10 paperbacks off to 1dollarscan--all in excess of 40 years old (some quite a bit in excess of that) none had ever had a hardcover edition, and nine of the ten are selling for about $40 USD and up when you can find a copy. I'm having them scanned because if no one does, those books are doomed.

As an example, if you find a copy of James Warner Bellah's short story collection Massacre, don't tell me: hold an auction. They're running $400 USD and up for a 70 year old paperback with a cover price of fifty cents. Except for the regrettable The Valiant Virginians (available POD) Everything Bellah ever wrote is out of print and not available as e-text. (Same with Elsie Lee, by the way.) And I keep a sorry paperback with a copy of Poul Anderson's "No Truce with Kings" specifically because NESFA DIDN'T include it in their reprints.

My guess is in the end, Google will find a way to market their library scans, and relatively little non-fiction or hardcover fiction will disappear--though I wouldn't put it past our lords and masters to make the texts more "inclusive" or less "offensive" and not even mention that they'd done so. But a lot of second-tier pulp and paperback originals are doomed if no action is taken.

(Is Gregg Press even still around, by the way? I don't think I've seen a new Gregg Press volume in 30 years or more. Nightshade died and good luck finding Jorkens books. And Black Dog and Lowenthal died part way through my set of Miss Marples. The attrition rate in companies reprinting classics is depressingly high.)

Never much of a fan of Bellah or western fiction in general, although he was a good source for movie adaptations as I recall.

You're probably right about some of the fiction published in pb only disappearing, but from my observations that can depend on all kinds of things and not only how popular they were when first published. As I mentioned, lots and lots of the Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective stories by Robert Leslie Bellem have recently been reprinted although they have pretty much no redeeming merit (I like them and I can't be the only one, but still they aren't very good) and all of the Operator #5 and the Spider and similar stuff was pure pulp written to a deadline, but enough people out there must like them as they are also being reprinted. So while some stuff will fall between the cracks and disappear, some of the old pbs are being reprinted, some are being converted or collected as kindle ebooks and someone out there is scanning lots and lots of stuff and donating them to Gutenberg or archive or some of the other more obscure online collections-I've got almost complete runs of Astounding/Analog from the 30s through the 60s, Galaxy from the 1st issue through the 60s, F&SF and Worlds of If ditto, and others (for example, Ray Palmer's Shaver Mystery issues of Amazing Stories-pure dreck, but interesting for the effect it had on the science fiction fan world-I find fandom's reaction to the sci-fi theme or cause of the day to be interesting in kind of a sad way) all downloaded as pdfs from archive. Also dozens of the old Galaxy novel reprints from the 50s, including some guys who never quite made it to the big time.

I'm not sure if Gregg Press is or was the same as Gregg Revivals; I've got a copy of Richmond's "The Navy in India 1763-1783" published by Gregg Revivals (a Brit company) in 1993.

Small reprint houses don't seem to have a high survival rate. I hope it will get better with the ebook market. The hard copy reprint market for the niche stuff was always dicey-sometimes done more as a labor of love than anything. The reduced production costs of ebooks and a somewhat better distribution system if done today might make the business easier for someone who has access to the source material and the time and interest to mess with it. Back in the 1980s a small publisher planned a 10 vol or greater series of Fred Brown's shorter and more obscure mysteries titled as the Fred Brown Pulp Detective Series. I found about 4 or 5 of them at Borders Books at the time, but haven't been able to find any more in the nearly 40 years since them-I suspect the publisher went out of business before he finished the series.

Anyway, I'm happy as a pig in slop with all the stuff available nowadays, and much of it just a click or two away. In the 1960s I occasionally ordered books for myself and for the library where I then worked from publishers based on info from Books in Print, and back then it was a real hit or miss proposition for pbs and such. Sure even today there's some stuff that's unavailable, extremely hard to find (for me those missing Fred Brown stories) or just too darn expensive, but we now have cheap and easy access to more fiction and non-fiction than anyone in the past who didn't live on top of a major research library-I have downloaded pdf copies of some military memoirs and the like that, according to world catalog, are only available in half a dozen libraries on this side of the Atlantic and I have phd theses that in the past I could have obtained only through a major university library if at all.

BTW, if you only want to read, or reread, Massacre by Bellah rather than have a copy for your own, it's available to borrow on archive. There are also some other books by him there as well as collections of his and other writer's stories.

More on copyright law here.

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I believe Bellah's story was the basis for "Ft. Apache"?