A general rule for determining whether a public domain book is in the public domain is to check if it is published. If the book is published and the copyright date is 1922 or before,then it is in the public domain. But the real problem comes for works that are:
Source:Resolving Public Domain Copyright Issues by Andrew Gowans
Fred von Lohmann of Electronic Frontier Foundation has the best single-post set of observations to date on the GBS settlement proposal. It notes that the settlement accomplishes a degree of access that litigation might have taken years to develop, but also observes critical areas of concern. Fair Use: How will this agreement impact future fair use cases involving book scanning? Others (like the Open Content Alliance) are scanning books, and they may not have Google’s ability (or budget) t
Source:EFF's Settlement Concerns
For internet entrepreneurs looking for blog content, there is a new and exciting public domain resource. A new website (http://www.publicdomainmedia.com) reveals dozens of sources of public domain content which anyone can use and profit from. This new and exciting site has tons of information to help internet marketing specialists and Adsense publishers make money online.
Fred von Lohmann of Electronic Frontier Foundation has the best single-post set of observations to date on the GBS settlement proposal. It notes that the settlement accomplishes a degree of access that litigation might have taken years to develop, but also observes critical areas of concern. Fair Use: How will this agreement impact future fair use cases involving book scanning? Others (like the Open Content Alliance) are scanning books, and they may not have Google’s ability (or budget) t
Source:EFF's Settlement Concerns
Seth Finkelstein, Google’s copyright war will have open access advocates up in arms, The Guardian, November 6, 2008. Excerpt: …[T]he very concept [of what Google had been doing in its Library Project] has created a copyright law conundrum. From one perspective, Google is making “fair use” - the use of short extracts, allowed under copyright law - of the books. Possibly a small snippet may be shown, while the searching ability is a valuable “transformative” application. But from a competi
Source:More on the Google settlement
Ponoko is a very cool service from New Zealand that takes your designs and laser cuts them on demand into a variety of materials like acrylic, felt, wood, and cardboard. I decided to try out the service with some images from public domain books available on the web to make a variety of acrylic jewelry, keychains, and hair sticks (hey, hair sticks are infinitely useful. You can poke people with them in addition to keeping your hair tied back). I downloaded their templates for Inkscape, a f
Source:Ponoko!
LibriVox is a volunteer effort with a big goal: record audiobook editions for every title in the public domain. In the following Q&A, LibriVox founder Hugh McGuire discusses the project’s beginnings, the organic development of the LibriVox community, and the distinctions (or lack thereof) between “professional” and “amateur” efforts. How did LibriVox start? LibriVox came about in August 2005, when I was looking for free, full-length audiobooks online for a long car trip. I went to gutenbe
Source:Open Source, Community and Audiobooks: Q&A with LibriVox Founder Hugh McGuire
Fred von Lohmann of Electronic Frontier Foundation has the best single-post set of observations to date on the GBS settlement proposal. It notes that the settlement accomplishes a degree of access that litigation might have taken years to develop, but also observes critical areas of concern. Fair Use: How will this agreement impact future fair use cases involving book scanning? Others (like the Open Content Alliance) are scanning books, and they may not have Google’s ability (or budget) t
Source:EFF's Settlement Concerns