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John C:

--- Quote from: OtherEric on April 09, 2010, 09:33:53 PM ---A correct registration is still needed for the automatic renewal until fairly recently.

--- End quote ---

This is something that confuses me, Eric, and I've gone back and forth with Ed Love on the topic a few times.  Do you have a reference for this?

As far as anybody's been able to find, you can't sue without a registration, but so far, the only suggestion that registration is "required" by the Copyright Office are ambiguously-phrased updates to the law that mention it being "no longer" required, implying that it was previously.

If there's somewhere that says this, that's a serious game-changer.  For example, Atlas/Seaboard books don't have any registrations, and their initial copyright terms would have otherwise expired quite some time ago.

OtherEric:
Standard disclaimer:  I am not a Lawyer, and so on:

Items published through 1963 copyrighted and not renewed are public domain.
Items published through 1977 and not copyrighted are public domain.
Items past 1977 until March 1, 1989 MAY be public domain under specific conditions.
Items past March 1, 1989 are NOT public domain even if the creator wants them to be.

For more information:
http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

John C:
Ah, OK, Eric.  I see the disconnect.  There are three parts to copyright.

First, there's the notice.  "Copyright 1965 XYZ Corporation."  Without this, prior to (March of) 1989, if you didn't have this, you didn't have a copyright.  The exceptions and conditions are that you could fix the notice if you catch it within a period that grew over time to five years.  However, with small press publishers producing disposable entertainment, I don't find this particularly likely.

Second, there's the renewal.  Prior to 1992, if your first copyright term had expired (meaning you had published prior to 1964) and you didn't renew the copyright, then the work went into the public domain.  And, obviously, if the work wasn't under copyright, the copyright can't be renewed.

Third and last, there's the registration, which requires filling out a form, paying a fee, and depositing copies of your work with the Library of Congress for reference.  This was optional as far as I could find, except (as I mentioned) for vague, ambiguous language in recent versions of the law which imply that the option is new.  Regardless, registration gives you the right to sue over infringement during the registration period.

I suspect (and correct me if I'm wrong, here) that you're confusing the notice with the registration.  Automatically renewing a book with no notice would be creating a new copyright, which isn't acceptable.  However, I haven't seen any part of the code requiring registration for renewal...but it could just be that I haven't seen that piece, since I've never read any version from end to end, let alone every version.

Incidentally, this might be helpful to somebody.  It's a compiled version of each version of copyright law, so that you can find what the situation was at a particular point of publication or renewal:

http://law.copyrightdata.com/

bbbrown:
Thank you got clearing that up for me Aussie.  Wonder if I read it some where else, incorrectly remembered the date or if it came from too many pain pills.

Fett, you fund it, I will make the time to run it as long as I can find some decent mod's to take care of the message end and some copyright expert to keep it legit. :)

Every one else, interesting reading.  Thank you.

narfstar:
So would Atlas Seabold books be safe for another site to carry even though they carried a copyright notice but did not register?

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