U.S. copyright renewal records available for download

Monday, June 23, 2008 at 9:45 AM

Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager, Google Book Search

If I handed you a book and asked whether it was in copyright or in the public domain, you'd probably turn to the copyright page first. Unfortunately, a copyright page can't answer that question definitively -- at best, it could tell you when the book in your hands was published, and who owned the rights to it at that time. Ownership can change, though: rights revert back to authors, and after enough time has passed, the book enters into the public domain, letting people copy and adapt it as they wish.

So how much time is "enough"? It varies, often depending on the country, on when the book was published, and whether the author is living. For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963, the rights holder needed to submit a form to the U.S. Copyright Office renewing the copyright 28 years after publication. In most cases, books that were never renewed are now in the public domain. Estimates of how many books were renewed vary, but everyone agrees that most books weren't renewed. If true, that means that the majority of U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963 are freely usable.

How do you find out whether a book was renewed? You have to check the U.S. Copyright Office records. Records from 1978 onward are online (see http://www.copyright.gov/records) but not downloadable in bulk. The Copyright Office hasn't digitized their earlier records, but Carnegie Mellon scanned them as part of their Universal Library Project, and the tireless folks at Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders painstakingly typed in every word.

Thanks to the efforts of Google software engineer Jarkko Hietaniemi, we've gathered the records from both sources, massaged them a bit for easier parsing, and combined them into a single XML file available for download here.

There are undoubtedly errors in these records, but we believe this is the best and most comprehensive set of renewal records available today. These records are free and in the public domain, and we hope you're able to use them to determine the copyright status of books that interest you.

At Google, we're committed to making as many books available online to users as possible while respecting copyright, and this is one example of that commitment. Watch this space for more to come.

Everybody's Libraries blog posting about the “first sale doctrine” and copyright

Originality, Genius, Plagiarism in English Criticism of the Eighteenth Century, by George J. BuelowInternational Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music © 1990

This book provides a layout and description of the options available to multimedia copyright owners for the protection of their works from unauthorized use. The utility and potential weakness of various antipiracy techniques and applications are discussed, including adult image filtering, encryption, watermarking, fingerprinting, and authentication among others. The book also provides discussion of various issues of interest to copyright owners regarding the parameters and limitations of applying Digital Rights Management techniques within intellectual property law.

In reference to my project, the plaintiff and defendant in the Viacom v. YouTube case represent two sides of an ongoing tug-of-war over legal rights to make use of copyrighted content. These two opposing sides are copyright owners and fair use claimants. The book addresses this topic.--"Although copyright literally means 'right to copy,' the term isnow used to cover a number of exclusive rights granted to the authors for the protection of their work...There are, however, limitations on these rights as established in several sections of the 1976 Copyright Act. One important limitation, the doctrine of 'fair use,' has been the subject of a major discussion oncontent protection" (6)

Furht, Borko, and Darko Kirovski. Multimedia Security Handbook (Internet and Communications). Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2005

This is the actual case in which Viacom filed an amended complaint, seeking punitive damages in addition to the statuory damages originally requested in the March 13, 2007 case.

In reference to my project, this provides an update to the ongoing case of Viacom v. Youtube. The request to amend for additional damages was denied. It was ordered that punitive damages could not be recovered in accordance with the Copyright Act.

Viacom Inernational Inc.v. YouTube, Inc. No. 95-02103. Southern District of New York District Ct. of the US. 7 March 2008.

This book presents a guide to the resource acquisition, legal, and financial necessities of producing an independent film.  Every aspect of the planning and execution of the business side of filmmaking is discussed, including hypothetical situations based on the personal experience of the entertainment lawyers who co-authorized the book.  The book introduces the roles of producer and lawyer, then outlines the film development process through deal making, financing, hiring, licensing and distribution.

As is pertains to my project, this book provides valuable insight into the warranted concern that filmmakers have had with the 21st century dispute over Internet distribution rights.  In the case of Viacom v. Youtube, the exclusive rights per the 1976 Copyright Act for copyright owners to reproduce their works became the basis for allegations against YouTube for a count of direct copyright infringement.  The authors of this book advise filmmakers to negotiate with distributors on the basis that they "cannon distribute on the Net until there is adequate 'border protection' to prevent access outside licensed territories" (132).

Erickson, Gunnar, Harris Tulchin, Mark Halloran, and J. Gunnar Erickson. The Independent Film Producer's Survival Guide: A Business and Legal Sourcebook . New York: Schirmer Trade Books, 2005

 

Intellectual property is an essential element of innovation. In order for innovative businesses to introduce intellectual property into the global market, strategic management and protective policies are necessary. The book looks at the dynamics and challenges of managing intellectual property.  The book details effective strategies for balancing intellectual property innovation and marketing in the public domain, with effective acquisition and protection of ownership rights.  The book is comprehensive, advancing from the history of these issues from a global perspective to future challenges that face pioneering global business models.

As it pertains to my project, the book describes Google as a visionary company that, despite the legal accusations against the business giant, may have success in reshaping the future of copyright law (135).

Gollin, Michael A. Driving Innovation: Intellectual Property Strategies for a Dynamic World . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008

The rights to intellectual property and the revenue thereof can make or break an entrepreneurial business.  This book covers the gambit of trade secrets that tech-savvy entrepreneurs may need to protect intellectual property in the dynamic arena of copyright law, licensing, patenting, and trademark acquisition.  The book makes examples of the infringement issues faced by international business icons such as Microsoft and Amazon.com.

As it pertains to my project, the book also goes over the provisions for statutory versus actual damages in the 1976 Copyright Act (115).  These provisions are under review in the Viacom v. YouTube case.

Guide, Gilbert. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets & Licensing . New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2004

Intellectual property is taking on new forms in the digital media market. Consumers are exploring their creative license through the use of multimedia service providers in unprecidented ways. This surge of consumer digital media use is also bringing to a head new conflicts between intellectual property rights Creative Commons, and Digital Rights Management. This book explores this phenomenon and the various ways in which major digital media service providers are being effected by this rapidly changing market environment. Overviews of the business performance, legal goings on, and multimedia services of such industry icons as Google, Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony BMG, Napster and more are discussed.

In reference to my project, the book looks at precident intellectual property cases and gives insights into how the concepts within the 1976 Copyright Act are applicable to the cases. The author also notes that Google has aside $200 million in escrow to deal with inevitable litigation, lists the various number of litigations involving YouTube, and notes that these cases will set important precedents for future review of copyright law as it pertains to Internet videos (253).

Rimmer, Matthew. Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands Off My Ipod. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 2007

The development of internet communities, the phenomenon of file-sharing, chat room hosting, and surfing are all aspects of cyberspace social behaviors that have coalesced to create a thriving social organism, or ecology.  In the book, Huberman makes a scientific observation of this phenomenon as statistically goverened patterns. While discussing the application of such physics concepts as Brownian motion and Zipf's Law, Huberman researches the mechanics of internet social behaviors, and the value of such findings to the future development of internet busines models and application architecture.

In relation to my project, and the accusations from Viacom, YouTube is being accused of actually inducing illegal behavior.  Huberman looks at various problematic features of file-sharing networks, and their contribution to the dilemma of creating user-friendly file-sharing functions at the risk of creating illegally replicated material (69).

Huberman, Bernardo A. The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information . Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001

 

This book provides a layout and description of the options available to multimedia copyright owners for the protection of their works from unauthorized use.  The utility and potential weakness of various antipiracy techniques and applications are discussed, including adult image filtering, encryption, watermarking, fingerprinting, and authentication among others.  The book also provides discussion of various issues of interest to copyright owners regarding the parameters and limitations of applying Digital Rights Management techniques within intellectual property law.

In reference to my project, the plaintiff and defendant in the Viacom v. YouTube case represent two sides of an ongoing tug-of-war over legal rights to make use of copyrighted content.  These two opposing sides are copyright owners and fair use claimants.  The book addresses this topic.--"Although copyright literally means 'right to copy,' the term isnow used to cover a number of exclusive rights granted to the authors for the protection of their work...There are, however, limitations on these rights as established in several sections of the 1976 Copyright Act.  One important limitation, the doctrine of 'fair use,' has been the subject of a major discussion oncontent protection" (6)

Furht, Borko, and Darko Kirovski. Multimedia Security Handbook (Internet and Communications). Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2005

This book goes over the trends in multimedia that are pushing multimedia services into unprecidented technological formats. There is an in-depth analysis of the multimedia security technologies applied to digital data as prevention of copyright abuse or violation. These various copyright protection techniques inlude digital watermarking, steganography, fingerprinting and data hiding among others.

For the purpose of my project, the book discusses how the ease of communication of digital data is making it a globally accessible commodity. This is why positive internet video sharing service and televisions industry partnerships are being fostered. There is a growing demographic of interenet file-sharing service users who can be reached with multimedia entertainment. The future of these internet hosting / television industry busines partnerships is being forged out of the new technologies in digital data sharing.

Also of interest for my project is that the book also addresses the matter at the root of the uneasiness and friction between multimedia industries like the television companies and the internet video-sharing environment in general. That problem is arising from the polarized interests of intellectual rights owners and interntet end-users seeking free access to information.--"...The development of digital technologies permitting transmission of digital data over the internet has raised questions about how these rights apply in the new environment.  How can digital intellectual property be made publicly available while guaranteeing ownership of the intellectual rights by the rights-holder and free access to information by the user?" (3).

• Lu,Chun-Shien. Multimedia Security: Steganography and Digital Watermarking Techniques for Protection of Intellectual Property. Hersey: Idea Group Inc., 2005

 

Television companies and internet video-sharing services are conflicting on issues of copyright infringement. YouTube, owned by Google Inc., is no stranger to the barrage of litigation that has ensued because of illegal postings on the site. Viacom, Inc. notably filed a recent lawsuit against YouTube for broadcasting clips from the network's affiliated television programs without legal permission. This project explores the role of copyright ownership in the volatile relationship between the television industry's copyright owners and the Internet video-sharing service icon, YouTube. Even Japanese television companies have accused YouTube of illegally displaying clips from their copyrighted programming. Google Inc. has faced a multitude of requests for copyrighted snippets to be removed from the YouTube site. Faced with the possibility of crippled business, Google, Inc. is addressing this problem both legally and technologically. The company has put efforts into researching and developing video-recognition system technology that would automatically disable the use of copyrighted clips without permission. My project will study the nuances of copyright law that are at risk of infringement in video-sharing sites, and specifically within the television companies' legal cases and negotiations. In addition the project will seek to define and discuss the technological aspect of enforcing copyright adherence among video-sharing end users.

Abstract
Bound By Law, authored by Duke IP Law professor James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins and illustrated by cartoonist turned IP law professor Keith Aoki, is a comic that chronicles, into plain English, the struggle of one documentary filmmaker’s perils into current copyright law. The story begins with a creepy goblin, who seems to be an unfortunate librarian at the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, introducing the audience to two well mannered individuals (could James and Jennifer) who will guide the filmmaker, Akiko, through the confusing world of copyright and filmmaking. Akiko desires to make a documentary capturing all the sights, sounds, social issues and culture of one day in the life of New York. She asks her guides if she will need to clear rights for everything she captures, and that’s where the journey begins. Here she learns of that only works published before 1923 are clearly in the public domain, leaving eighty years of content that may need to be cleared for her film, if she happens to capture it on film. Akiko hesitantly learns of the changes in copyright law, the extensions and increasing amount permission clearances needed for her work, and also a helpful lesson in fair use in how “rights” culture can be changed by “making collective decisions about what’s fair”, and how the intention of fair use mediates between giving incentive to authors to use content to critique on culture. After having explored the world of fair use our hero embarks on the journey through term limits which unfortunately has been subject to some of the most draconian changes, including the most recent copyright extension (CTEA) which protects the works of an author for life plus seventy years after the author’s death and also extended all work currently under copyright for an additional twenty years. The comic beautifully and simple illustrates how this runs counter to the constitutions intentions and how current copyright law is doing harm to the public domain. The guides then bring Akiko to a ledge where the cold, dark, fenced factories and plants of corporate and restrictive control are contrasted with James Boyle’s ecological idea of sustainable development in the balance of copyright and creative works which is illustrated with a lush open landscape of creativity.

Relevance
The comic beautifully illustrated the ins and outs of copyright law and made the plethora of literature, prior to discovering this text, a bit more simple to understand. It balances the restrictions, and purpose of copyright law with the freedom a creator inherently is given. There is a considerable amount of content covering fair use, but the section on the copyright term extension is most applicable to my research.  The comic wonderfully shows the frustration regarding the increasing amount of extensions and there affects and on the public domain. The work itself is a testament to the balance of creativity and law, and it’s endeavor to make these issues and rights known in plain English is a wonderful experiment, that I’m better informed after reviewing.

2008-01.pdf (application/pdf Object)

From RLG:

"I am pleased to announce that the RLG Partner Copyright Investigation Summary Report is now available. This report summarizes interviews conducted between August and September 2007 with staff from eight partner institutions. Interviewees shared information about how and why institutions investigate and collect copyright evidence, both for mass digitization projects and for items in special collections. This report is one of the deliverables of the Contribute to the Development of a Registry of Copyright Evidence Project that is part of our Create New Structures and Service Areas work agenda program."

Hatcher, Jordan S. "Of Otaku and Fansubs: A Critical Look at Anime Online in Light of Current Issues in Copyright Law." Script-ed, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2005
Hatcher examines the workings of the American anime industry, paying the most attention to the history and physical process of fansubbing. Fansubbing is the process by which fans take Japanese anime (taped from broadcast television or DVD/home video), translate it and edit the video to include their own subtitles. Fansubs used to be distributed on VHS either in stores or among fan clubs, but are now almost exclusively found online. Hatcher suggests that the anime industry, though it has unquestionably benefited from fansubbing and other forms of high-level fan involvement, is now "held hostage by the internet and their otaku-consumers." By now professional licensing and localization companies can do much of their own advertising and market research due to the growth and age of the domestic marketplace; yet such companies know that to crack down on the core loyal fans will almost certainly result in a huge backlash from those on whom they rely most. In contrast to common internet "pirates," fansubbing groups commit infringing acts in the open (as publicized on websites or individual named in credits attached to their work) and are confident in the moral high ground of their actions (if a work is not yet licensed in America, it is seen as "perfectly legal" to make it available in fansubbed form, for example-despite international copyright laws); the common conception of "anime fair use" makes many technically illegal uses practically immune to legal retaliation

The almost forced acceptance of the fan use of anime in America, in order to maintain loyalty and relevancy among fanbase, makes anime music videos relatively easy to allow for domestic copyright holders. A lawsuit that attacks a now established tradition within the community would alienate much of a company's fanbase, driving them to other sources-including illegal ones if nothing else is available. Given the companies' general tolerance of (or lack of legal action against) the availability of full episodes or movies online, music videos are a much easier sell as "advertisements" for their products as opposed to replacements or illegal derivative works. And given the industry's heavy stake in the convention scene, it is clear that the community aspect of anime fandom must be maintained and courted in order to stay viable.

Music Copyright in Britain to 1800, by David Hunter
Music & Letters © 1986

Nancy A. Mace, "Haydn and the London Music Sellers: Forster V. Longman & Broderip," Music & Letters, Vol. 77, No. 4. (Nov., 1996), pp. 527-541.

J. C. Bach Goes to Law, by John Small
The Musical Times © 1985

Arne, Handel, Walsh, and Music as Intellectual Property: Two Eighteenth-Century Lawsuits, by Ronald J. Rabin; Steven Zohn
Journal of the Royal Musical Association © 1995 Royal Musical Association

1735-7 emergence of proprietary authorship - copyright as author's basic right rather than special privelege granted by state (45, 56-66)

Pope v. Curll 1741 re: letters.

The current Creative Commons license options

The Constitution of the United States. 

 

 

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Scenarios for consideration in copyright relating to documentary films.

A chart describing the path for works to get to the public domain according to U.S. copyright law.

The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the 'Author', by Martha Woodmansee
Eighteenth-Century Studies © 1984

Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

Developed at Stanford. Copyright renewal records received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1992 for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963. Note that the database includes only US Class A (book) renewals.

Produced by ARL, AAUP, AAP and AAU.

SUMMARY: This paper proposes encoding information that would be needed in a MARC 21 record to be able to ascertain facts concerning copyright status. This would facilitate the user to make a reasonable judgment about what use is allowed of the resource, and is particularly important in the digital world, where resources are accessed outside the context of the originating archive. It suggests using a single field to contain all copyright information, even if repeating other data somewhere else in the record, because of the complications.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University provides this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.

quoted in the Ecstasy of Influence

In this Manifesto, Professor Boyle claims that there are systematic errors in contemporary intellectual property policy and that WIPO has an important role in helping to correct them.

A great Harper's article on the relationship of authorship to creation.  Highlights:

"Any text that has infiltrated the common mind to the extent of Gone With the Wind or Lolita or Ulysses inexorably joins the language of culture. A map-turned-to-landscape, it has moved to a place beyond enclosure or control. The authors and their heirs should consider the subsequent parodies, refractions, quotations, and revisions an honor, or at least the price of a rare success." 

I've long thought that a reasonable plan. 

cited by Gitelman Scripts Grooves.

January 18, 2007
With Arrest of DJ Drama, the Law Takes Aim at Mixtapes
By KELEFA SANNEH
In the world of hip-hop few music executives have more influence than DJ Drama. His "Gangsta Grillz" compilations have helped define this decade's Southern rap explosion. He has been instrumental in the careers of rappers like Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne. He appears on the cover of the March issue of the hip-hop magazine XXL, alongside his friend and business partner T.I., the top-selling rapper of 2006. And later this year DJ Drama is scheduled to make his Atlantic Records debut with "Gangsta Grillz: The Album."
Now DJ Drama is yet another symbol of the music industry's turmoil and confusion.
On Tuesday night he was arrested with Don Cannon, a protégé. The police, working with the Recording Industry Association of America, raided his office, at 147 Walker Street in Atlanta. The association makes no distinction between counterfeit CDs and unlicensed compilations like those that DJ Drama is known for. So the police confiscated 81,000 discs, four vehicles, recording gear, and "other assets that are proceeds of a pattern of illegal activity," said Chief Jeffrey C. Baker, from the Morrow, Ga., police department, which participated in the raid.
DJ Drama (whose real name is Tyree Simmons) and Mr. Cannon were each charged with a felony violation of Georgia's Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization law(known as RICO) and held on $100,000 bond.
...
There have been mixtape busts before: in 2005, five employees of Mondo Kim's, in the East Village in New York, were jailed after the store was found to be selling unlicensed mixtapes. But the arrest of a figure as prominent as DJ Drama is unprecedented. Record companies usually portray the fight against piracy as a fight for artists' rights, but this case complicates that argument: most of DJ Drama's mixtapes begin with enthusiastic endorsements from the artists themselves.
It also seems clear that mixtapes can actually bolster an artist's sales. The most recent Lil Wayne solo album, "Tha Carter II" (Cash Money/Universal), sold more than a million copies, though none of its singles climbed any higher than No. 32 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. That's an impressive feat, and it's hard to imagine how he would have done it without help from a friendly pirate.

 

This press release, while short, is one of the only legal responses specifically relating to BitTorrent within the world of peer-to-peer file sharing.  This tells of the conviction and sentencing of one of the administrators of a BitTorrent tracker called EliteTorrents.com.  The FBI took down the site in 2005, and then over a year later, Grant T. Stanley was sentenced to 5 months in prison, 5 months house arrest and assessed a fine of $3,000 for copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. The importance of this case lies in the fact that it destroys what was considered the best defense administrators of torrent trackers had.  It was assumed that, because trackers do not actually house any illegal or infringing files, that those who ran such sites couldn’t be held responsible for the infringement of users of the site.  Basically, the precedent set in MGM v. Grokster was applied to this case, and it was determined that the administrator of EliteTorrents was inducing infringement, by providing files which could only be used for an infringing purpose.
This shows somewhat new tactic in the fight against illegal file sharing. Rather than going after the makers of individual programs such as in Grokster and Napster, they went after those providing access to the infringing content.  This has a great deal to do with the nature of BitTorrent itself, and speaks to the fact that the potential for non-infringing use is so great, that the MPAA likely would not have thought it worth their time to fight what would have almost inevitably been a lost battle against the technology.  The people who run and even use various torrent trackers are likely a bit more worried than they would have been even a month ago, but those using BitTorrent for non-infringing purposes likely need not worry.

    This article is a guide written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, aimed at Universities to provide a guide for establishing policies on peer-to-peer file sharing.  One of the primary issues that the article tackles is the line between fighting copyright infringement while maintaining a suitable learning environment and protecting the rights and privacy of the students.  The issue of determining where to draw the line in regards to students privacy versus complying with copyright law is a delicate one that has been faced by most institutions of higher education at some point.  The key, according to the article, is discouraging copyright infringement while maintaining student’s privacy and freedom.  Without actively discouraging infringement, they could face potential repercussions from those who support the school financially or even legal repercussions.  Maintaining privacy for students is important in keeping the respect of the students and creating a working academic environment.  
    The article also goes into a fair amount of detail as to the establishment of a school’s network.  One possible solution offered by the article is the establishment of a school sponsored download service.  There are downsides to such a solution, but it can have a major impact on illegal downloading, if a legal alternative is easily available at no additional cost (other than what comes out of tuition to pay for the service).  Peer-to-peer sharing is a major issue on most college campuses, and with programs such as BitTorrent, it’s only going to continue to grow.  If a university can curb illegal file sharing, it lowers the chance of RIAA lawsuits coming into the campus, which would be bad for everyone but the RIAA.