Copyright Year

Copyright year is the year that edition came out. Usually even if there are later editions both the orignial copyright year will be listed plus the copyright year of each edition following.

If there is a new year listed, then there was a substantial change in that edition of the publication.

I will not rate that as a good answer, simply because I am jealous of the 9, yes 9, GA's that you already hold. But it is a good answer.

Do note however the difficulties that exist in determining a First printing of a book. If you are a collector there is often much ambiguity that needs clearing in such matters.

But I have digressed. Mr S has given you an accurate answer.

cr3

Copyright is tricky stuff. Authors typically transfer copyrights for material to a publisher under a contract. The contract specifies the money and such that the author gets for the material. It is common to stipulate in such a contract that the publisher must promote or keep the book in print to keep the material under contract. That gives the author some recourse of getting their material back if the publisher just shelves the work and does nothing with it.

A book with several copyright dates in the front can indicate that the copyrights have been renewed or renegotiated in the years listed. The only way to be certain if the material is part of the public domain is to do an extensive search (and you probably want to hire a firm to do that). If you are just making up church flyers, you would need to do less searching than if you were reprinting or adapting someone else's text.

There is a story that I read somewhere years ago about some parents that had a Peanuts character engraved on the headstone of their small child that passed away from cancer. They did it without getting permission and when it was discovered, the matter went all the way up to Charles Schultz. He agonized over the problem for some time. In the end, his lawyers convinced him he had to have the family remove the image from the headstone. They were concerned about the precedent that would be established if they allowed the "asking for forgiveness instead of permission" mentality. The story went on to say that Schultz was so bothered by it that he considered sacrificing all copyrights and giving his characters to the world, but some folks talked him out of it.

I did a little searching to try and verify the Schultz story, but I was unable to find anything. That probably means the place I read it was unreliable (or I am mis-remembering the facts), but the well known compassion of Schultz makes me think that it is likely to have some truth to it.

EDIT: My searching for the Schultz information caused me to answer after Steve S. His comment about the content changes is spot on. That would cause the copyrights to be renegotiated or renewed.

Copyright is the sole ownership of the author and generally does not expire unless he has sold or given it to a publisher for a fixed period. If the copyright date has changed, it is usually related to a publishing contract and possibly a cover change. A copyright date may not signify any editing in the content.

Edition dates are what you need to follow for content change. They may be the same as the copyright, or publishing dates.

Copyright is the sole ownership of the author and generally does not expire unless he has sold or given it to a publisher for a fixed period.

That is not accurate..In the U.S. I beleive it is 50 or 75 years after death. I forget. My Great Gpa Eugene C Barker has many published works and I need to revisit this issue myself.

cr3

In the word "generally" I was talking about while the author is alive.

In US, it is currently from 70 to 120 years after death or presumption of death for anything published after Jan 1 1978, however, there may be extensions.

see:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#302

Charley,

I on the other hand have marked yours as a good answer, because it is a good answer, and because I like you and I hope that some day you too will have 9 good answers...

My gratitudes to all friends for the views and clarifications provided on the topic.

One more view to share with this forum is quoted below:

"The purpose of a copyright date is to tell the world that you have created a piece of content and when you have created it. It is a document to prove and underline your copyright claims. So if anybody finds your content somewhere else you can point to the date and say: See - I published this already in 2004. Mine is the original."