Thanks for the additional info. on Ridge, Catherine, and I'd like to hear
more about your HOW2 essay and what you mean by "make it available free." If
by "it" you mean works now in the public domain, then the meaning of "free"
will depend on what kind of work it is (the classic example being Shaw's
plays, which, having exhausted their copyright, can now be performed
royalty-free). It's the "public" term in "public domain" that the concept
turns on, so if you mean "make it public," that's one thing (and
unproblematic), but if you mean at no cost to the reader/viewer, well,
somebody's got to pay for the work's production or performance, or even for
the website on which it may be displayed and made accessible at no cost.
And the reason why comparatively little published work is actually in the
public domain is that there's always a mad scramble among publishers to get
out new editions of works whose copyright is due to lapse or run out, so
that a new one can be declared in the new edition. Also, if by "available"
you "to be read," well that's unproblematic so long as somebody's willing to
stump up for the cost of making a work "available." Nothing is available in
any wholesale sense, though--such as available for destruction or to call
one's own--because even public domain works make a moral appeal on us as
(somebody's) work.
I'm curious about whether Ridge's literary executor and/or the Project
Gutenberg people with whom you're working regard her poetry--all of it,
across the board--as in the public domain(?). If Sproat has been the
executor since 1941, when Ridge died, she'd almost certainly be guilty now
of dereliction of duty (by reason of copyright forfeiture), renewal not
being automatic for works published prior to 1964. As for Mickey Mouse,
that's a matter of licensing rather than corporate authorship in either the
corporation or the authorship aspect. The Mouse is a creation with a known
creator, after all--but except in rad po-mo usage, Mickey wouldn't be
considered a _text_.
What puzzles me most here, though, is what significance 1924 (or 77 years)
has--it's a new one on me. There's the "life plus 50" rule for post-1978
works (and "works," not books, are what get copyrighted, the phrase being "a
work in fixed and tangible form"--not one that need even be published, much
less as a book exclusively); there used to be a "56 years rule" when every
work was entitled to two possible copyright terms of 28 years each; and for
some works now--namely, those "made for hire" (as translations typically
are) or published under what's sometimes called "corporate copyright" but
doesn't necessarily mean _incorporation_--either 75 or 100 years is the max.
So what's the story with 77 years/1924?
Thanks,
Candice
on 6/7/01 7:59 PM, Catherine Daly at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> There are some individual poems of Ridge's various spots online, mostly
> from public domain anthologies, i.e., those published in the U.S. prior
> to 1924. THE GHETTO AND OTHER POEMS is from 1918; SUN-UP is from 1920.
> Ridge died in 1941. The most information currently available online is
> at Cary Nelson's MAPS, which will hopefully soon include links to the
> first 2 ms & some of my syllabi which use them. Some Ridge poems, then,
> are in the OUP Modern American Poetry. Some others are in NO MORE MASKS.
>
> http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ridge/ridge.htm
>
> I am also preparing an essay I hope to submit to HOW2, so I'm glad
> Candice asked, since in certain circles making this type of information
> available electronically is still controversial, but since I'm firmly on
> the "make it available free" side, it is hard for me to fully appreciate
> arguments contra.
>
> Anything published in book form in the U.S. by a single author,
> translator, or editor prior to 1924 is in the public domain. After
> that, very many books are in the public domain if the author is dead and
> the literary estate has failed to renew copyright. Modern subsequent
> editions (not collections) & renewal of copyright I'm not sure. In the
> case of corporate authorship, Disney has effectively protected Mickey
> Mouse, and it will probably never be public, so only early modernism is
> up for grabs.
>
> In the case of Ridge, Elaine Sproat is the Ridge literary executor, and
> she is doing a collected Ridge through U of Maine. Apparently she pas
> written papers re: Ridge & political reasons she's been effectively erased.
>
> Rgds,
> Catherine Daly
> [log in to unmask]
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