Older Copyright Works Need to be Free

Why extend the copyright on works that no longer have commercial value? A good case would be genealogy books written in the 1940s and '50s. Today these books have almost no commercial value to the authors or to their heirs; yet, the books provide valuable information to today's genealogists. However, copyright laws keep these books locked up.

For some books, only a few copies or perhaps even a single copy exists in any libraries. Chances are, there is not a single copy of a book you seek anywhere near you. Such books could easily be digitized and placed on the web. However, under current laws, that would be illegal without obtaining the author's permission. Locating the authors or their heirs after 40 years or more is so difficult that most never get contacted. As a result, the information in these books cannot be legally copied, nor can the book be photoduplicated because of arcane U.S. copyright laws. These books are rendered dead, and dead books benefit no one.

The last extension to U.S. copyright laws in the United States occurred in 1998 with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. This was the 11th extension in 40 years to U.S. copyrights for existing works, delaying any copyrighted work from entering the public domain for another 20 years. These laws supposedly were designed to "protect the rights of copyright holders." However, in practice, the present laws benefit no genealogy authors, but instead they restrict access so that millions of genealogists do not have easy or inexpensive access to the information. It is interesting to compare U.S. laws to those in Europe that are much more relaxed and yet work well.

Legal expert Lawrence Lessig has written a compelling article about this in Wired magazine. He never mentions the word "genealogy," and yet his words apply to that topic as well as to thousands of others. You can read Lessig's article on Wired's web site.

Comments

[David T. Robertson]

I'f they have no commercial value then why are publishing companies so eager to see this bill past. Authors for years have been at the mercy of publishers who have the capitol and the resources to publish just about anything they wish. Now for once the coin is in the Authors hands. I feel sure that once publishers find that there is no longer a free lunch, they will find a way to publish short runs and limited issue reprints, just like Disney is doing with its movies.

[Eileen Pelletier]

What about the copyright of photographs? I tried having a copy made of a long ago cousin of my grandfather's, she has been dead almost a 100 years, she was an only child, died very young no descendants, in one of the large chain stores, no way can they do it, they could be sued, etc. etc.gave me a phamplet concerning the reasons they cannot do it.Is this a concern of anyone else. I wouldn't think of doing a resent one, say from 25 years until now. Eileen G. Pelletier aepell@metrocast.net

[Janet McFarland]

It is not entirely correct that material published in the 40's and 50's are copyright protected. As we all know material published prior to 1923 is in the public domain (copyright free) Material published from 1923-1963 maybe in the public domain if the copyright holder did not refile for an extension. It has been my finding that most copyright holders of material published during this period in the genealogy market did not file for an extention, therefore, it is now in the public domain. Unfortunately, to find out if something is now in the public domain from this time period you either need to go to the Library of Congress and search the files yourself or pay the Library of Congress or someone else to do the search for you. For more information with regards to dates related to copyright Cornell University has a good chart: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

Otherwise we are stuck with the current copyright law because of Disney's power and the money making franchise of Mickey Mouse and other characters. Mickey Mouse's copyright protection was due to expired in 2003, however, the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act extended Disney's franchise for another 20 years.

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Dick,

You say "these books have almost no commercial value to the authors or to their heirs; yet, the books provide valuable information to today's genealogists."

If I've ever seen a contradictory statement, that's one. How can these books be full of valuable information, but have no commercial value?

Why are the big subscription services so eager to get their meathooks into them?

These books obviously have commercial value to the authors and their heirs. They only need to be shown how to self-publish and market these books.

[Dick Eastman]

---> If I've ever seen a contradictory statement, that's one. How can these books be full of valuable information, but have no commercial value?

Valuable to whom? To the genealogist who seeks information? The information within these books can be valuable.

To the author or to his/her heirs? These books generally have very little monetary value. Very few people have made much money in republishing a book written many years ago by a relative.

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

If these books have so little value why the big push by the pay-per-view sites to get them? Sounds like someone perceives some value there. Let's face it, they aren't going to go to all the effort of digitizing, etc. if they aren't going to be able to increase their revenues from the effort.

For instance, I see value in the old Godfrey (Victorian era) OS maps of Great Britain. Several companies are reprinting them and selling them. I've bought about a dozen of them. If someone had published a history of the Hutchens family in Cornwall prior to 1950, I am personally acquainted with a dozen or so researchers who would buy the book on CD as fast as we could type or credit card number in. And there are probably several times that number. Granted that's not a lot of book sales, but would certainly cover the cost of producing the CDs.

As for self publishing, all you need is one copy of the book, a scanner, a CD writer and some PDF creating software (free or otherwise) to do a bargain basement self publish job.