question regarding Winsor McCay, and old strips in general

[Alessandro Bottero]

hello. i would like to know, if someone could help me withi this:
are Winsor McCay works PD, and if this is the case, do you think it is possible to find them on the net?

[OtherEric]

Anything from 1922 and earlier is Public Domain, that definitely includes most if not all of McCay's work.  I'm sure much of it is available, even if I'm not sure where to look.

[CaptainMarvel]

You can sometimes buy collections of his old strips on eBay and elsewhere. I've got three albums of his old work and I need to get them scanned so I can make them available. Note: There have been reprint collections over the years and you can't scan those and upload them because they fall under a copyright on the collection as a whole (in other words, they did the work of collecting it so you can't just copy what they did).

[narfstar]

Actually CM I believe you can copy them. Just collecting them is not enough. The problem is in any alterations. If color was added or removed they are no longer public domain. If they were printed as is then by my not a lawyer understanding they can not be copyright.

[Yoc]

It is most safe for DCM and GAC to only host scans from known originals.
Scans from reprints, touched or not, have too many potential problems.