"Anyone want to talk copyright?" Topic

I am helping a local museum go through their collections and get "right" by copyright. Some of the instances are pretty clear cut like having a photocopy of a book next to the actual book. There are a few that are head scratchers.

Here is one that I am researching. A certain Georgia capt. during the civil war wrote letters back home. In 1940 the Georgia chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy transcribed the hand written letters and printed them in book form, but without copyright notice. This museum has a photocopy of that book.

As I am interpreting it the fact the UDC book was published without copyright notice essentially made it public domain under the 1909 law in effect at the time. If it had been copyrighted and renewed at the appropriate time the work would be under copyright until 2035 (1940 + 28yrs original +67yrs renewal) but there is no evidence this happened.

Am I missing anything? I am reasonably versed on copyright on modern formats such as electronic files. Going back to the 1909 law is a new venture for me.

It's very complicated to figure out duration for these old works. For example, if the (c) is 1940, then it would have a 28 year term which would have been due for renewal in 1968. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 allowed for automatic renewal of copyrights and a subsequent amendment allowed for retroactive renewals of past copyrights. I'm not an expert in copyright duration, but it's important to find out whether it was registered and/or renewed by the Copyright Office. It has an online search tool but it's certainly lacking in functionality. I wouldn't rely to heavily on it.

I generally err on the side of caution and if it's published in the last 100 years call it under copyright. Otherwise it probably costs more to figure out whether you're infringing a work than to just buy a legitimate copy.

In general, the copyright of a written work (and other stuff) lapses 75 years after the death of the author. So the CONTENT of the letters is well out of copyright – unless the Georgia Captain was remarkably long-lived!!!

The copyright on the book published in 1940 should therefore not be on the content of the letters, but on the specific edition of the book. So if the book has a blue cover with a picture of a cannon on it, is in Times Roman font and has a typo on line 3 of page 47, then that is all protected for about 30 years from date of publication. (nycjadie is probably more accurate with his 28 year figure.)

If there is anything NEW in the book – say a foreword describing how the letters came to be transcribed – then that has the 75 years after the death of the author rule on it.