Hi, Catherine--sorry, I wasn't very clear on the Mouse issue: it was what
seemed to be a confusion between so-called "corporate copyright" (works for
hire) and what you were calling "corporate authorship," though it's moot
where Disney's concerned because Walt was both creator AND incorporator.
Glad to get this info. about Gutenberg, as there's a short story writer
roughly contemporaneous with Ridge (and even more Red!), Martha Wolfenstein,
whose two turn-of-the-century collections, _Idyls of the Gasse_ and
_Renegade_ (originally published by the Jewish Publication Society in this
country and Macmillan in the UK), deserve digital preservation, too, so I
may look into that.

Enjoyed the MAPsite display of Ridgeanna you pointed us toward (thanks) and
hadn't known of the Tom Mooney connection, so that was a nice surprise. (Do
you happen to know whether the _Encyclopedia of the American Left_, from
which the Mooney page was excerpted, is online?) Also appreciated the
external link to the wonderful late-19thc. classic NYC ethnography by Jacob
Riis (who introduced the term "street Arab" into American English, I think),
as the online version of the book even includes its spectacular
illustrations (drawings of the photographs Riis took in 1890 as he explored
(and deplored while celebrating its denizens) the tenements of Hester Street
& others, as well as what he famously called "the Sweaters of
Jewtown")--what heart that man had! The link to the very nice Library of
Congress exhibit "American Memory" was worth following, too--and it led me
on to the Copyright Office website, which is a treasure trove! I'd been
meaning to bring myself up to speed with newish Acts like "Digital
Millennium" and the "Sonny Bono Extension of Term" one (copyright duration
is now "life plus 70," effective just this past October--there's nothing
"rule of thumb" about it), and I found so much good stuff there I stayed
until my computer crashed!

But seriously, everyone who lives/writes and/or even publishes in this
country ought to check it out, as there's new legislation on copyright and
trademarks moving through Congress all the time now, since the US became a
signatory to Berne and all the subsequent treaties and agreements (GATTS,
TRIPPs, WIPO, etc.). There's so much MISinformation floating around
currently because (at least partly) there's just so much new info. all of a
sudden, and it behoofs us all as writers and editors to go to THE source.
I'm sure whoever gave you the bum steer on the 1924/77-years duration meant
well, Catherine, but it just ain't so--Candice


on 6/8/01 9:41 PM, Catherine Daly at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> 77 years is just a rule of thumb covering years inclusive. Copyright was
> secured the date a work was published. Works this old are eligible for
> a maximum of 75 years of copyright protection.
>
> Project Gutenberg has a network of donated FTP space and any volunteer
> can type or scan anything in the public domain. May be freely
> reproduced, used for derivative works, performed, distributed, etc.
> Access to the internet is not free, etc. PG makes ASCII files available
> for free download. Dozens of other sites make texts available a variety
> of ways (and some reserve various rights).
>
> If a book is republished (Dover publishes a lot of stuff like this, New
> American Library, etc.), copyright covers the new edition, not the
> original.
>
> As you know, I don't believe works make a "moral" appeal. The Mouse
> _is_ copyrighted. Disney licenses the use of its copyrighted character
> (to factories staffed by slave labor, but tracking that was a job I
> didn't get).
>
> Be well,
> Catherine Daly
> [log in to unmask]