Digital Dialogs has often featured posts on the public domain and the USF Libraries’ new public domain materials. For our annual digitization the Libraries’ selects material with a publication date that indicates it would fall in to the public domain by its copyright expiration. No matter how straightforward this may seem, determining what is public domain can be quite complicated.
In the middle of the of the 20th century, published material had to adhere to formalities required by U.S. Copyright law in order to gain copyright protection. These formalities included notice, e.g. placing a ‘© symbol’ and date on a work, and registration of the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. There was also a period of renewal that could be applied for when the initial term of copyright ended. Unpublished materials, like diaries and letters, were and are still protected for the life of the author plus 70 years, regardless of their creation date. So how do you find out for sure if the book you have in front of you is in the public domain?
The Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States page at Cornell University Library includes a table that clearly lays out the copyright status of a work based on publication year, formalities required, and/or renewal. It is an excellent first place to look when determining whether an item is copyright protected.
By looking at the table, you can determine if the book in front of you could be in the public domain if the copyright holder didn’t renew it when the initial term of copyright expired.
Like the registration process, the renewal process for copyright includes submitting necessary paperwork with the U.S. Copyright Office. These records are open to the public, however, for a very long time, they were only available in print at the Library of Congress. While there is still no comprehensive digital alternative to this print series, there are a few online resources that cover some of the information:
- Copyright Registrations Public Catalog of the United States Copyright Office is an online search for copyright registrations and renewals after 1978.
- Catalog of Copyright Entries index page links to digitized copies of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, that recorded registration and renewal on copyrighted works, from 1891-1978 on the Internet Archive.
- Stanford Copyright Renewals Database is a searchable index of the copyright renewal records for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963. Note that the database includes only renewal records, not original registrations, and only Class A (book) renewals received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1992.
- United States Copyright Office’s Copyright Public Records System pilot will run parallel with the Copyright Registration Public Catalog with future goals to provide a more complete online search.
With these tools, you can more confidently determine a work’s public domain or copyright protected status. If you are still unsure, or ever have any questions, you can always ask your copyright librarian for help.