Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: RSV copyright Message-ID: Date: 24 Jul 90 19:01:12 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Harvey Mudd College Lines: 32 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , sacg1198@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott A Cattanach) writes... >Does anyone out there know about copyright law? Namely, I heard that >the RSV was written at the turn of the century and the copyright could >expire. Anyone know? Can we put a non-KJV out on the net (finally :-)? Chris adds: >[I don't know the answer, but I think RSV may be a special case. I >recall vaguely Congress passing a special law to extend the copyright >beyond its normal term. --clh] I don't know about special cases, but here's a brief summary of copyright law durations for works created before 1978 (the copyright laws changed after 1978 and there are all sorts of conditions that can affect the protection period for a work created since then). A work would get copyright protection for 28 years, renewable for an additional 28 years. Works whose copyright did not expire prior to 1978 were eligible for a second renewal of 19 years. Thus, in general, anything published prior to 1922 will be public domain (barring a special law). Writing to the registrar of copyrights in Washington DC (I don't have an address handy) can reveal the status of any registered work (any thing published prior to 1962 and not registered is automatically public domain). -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont Consulting and dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu production work. Free Estimates. dhosek@ymir.bitnet uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147