Public domain books published 1923-1963

April 6, 2007 2:56 PM

Stanford's new Copyright Renewal Database makes searchable the copyright renewal records of books published from 1923-1963, previously very difficult to do. Between those dates, a renewal registration was required to prevent the expiration of copyright, so books not renewed are now in the public domain. Publishing scanned books on Internet Archive.
posted by stbalbach (3 comments total)

Neat--I'd been wondering about the status of an underappreciated 1960s children's book that I think should be reprinted, and this answered my question. I suppose it was pretty unlikely that the copyright had simply been allowed to run out (which woulda made reprinting really easy, of course), but it's nice to know for sure.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:29 PM on April 6, 2007

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet? Taken. (curses!)
posted by Alt F4 at 5:37 PM on April 6, 2007

I should add that some works are exempt from needing renewal, those by foreign authors basically, for the exact wording see here
posted by stbalbach at 9:46 PM on April 6, 2007