JohnC's 'How To Check Public Domain Status Tutorial'

[narfstar]

I was looking up some Dell copyrights and came across this. It is for many Dell properties and even included Brothers of the Spear. Does it mean what it looks like to me that Dell willingly released the property. Do a more search options for V3476D630. Click on a title. It will have a clickable FULL TITLE  Tall Book of Christmas & 12,270 more. When you click you get a message that looks like the rights were terminated. 

Document Number:   V3476D630
Date of Recordation:    2001-11-29
Entire Copyright Document:    V3476 D628-645 P1-437
Date of Execution:    24Aug01
Title:    The tall book of Christmas & 12,270 other titles. (Part 003 of 018)
Notes:    Termination and release of security interest in copyright rights (United States) Doc. refers to V3447 P355-390, recorded on 28Jan00.
Party 1:    CIT Group/Business Credit, Inc., as administrative agent.
Party 2:    Golden Books Publishing Company, Inc. 

A clickable list of these titles.

[John C]

I've never seen anything like it, myself.  But there's nothing in the law about termination of or giving up copyright, though, as far as I've seen, so that's probably not the final result.  No clue, though.  The best bet would probably be to give the office a call.

[Yoc]

Narf, if you call please let us know what they say.

[narfstar]

I would not know who to call. I did send a message to a LOC archivist.

[bchat]

CIT Group/Business Credit, Inc is a financial holding company.  Since this (doc# V3476D630) refers to a previous document ("V3447 P355-390, recorded on 28Jan00") where the rights were assigned to CIT, I would guess that the copyrights were being used as collateral for a loan by Golden Books.

[narfstar]

looks unlikely they aren't pd  

[CDR Hood]

looks unlikely they aren't pd  

So, the Dell Comics here are PD?

[Yoc]

Those on DCM, as far as we can tell, are PD

[jonathangraham]

"Copyrighted" or "Entire contents copyrighted"

Are showing up in a few issues I'm looking at online.  Anyone weigh in if this counts as proper attribution?

It's neither the symbol, the word "Copyright" or a short form I'm familiar with.

[John C]

Up until a certain point, the only acceptable phrasings are copyright and the circled-c (it's in one of the circulars on the Copyright Office's main page, I believe), so anything else would be invalid.

That's not to say, however, that copying it definitely won't result in any  lawsuits.  I think the story goes that the first US printing of The Lord of the Rings violated a significant copyright policy, but the courts basically ruled that the details don't always matter.  If it was something like "entire contents copyright..." I doubt any clerk or court would consider that wrong.

[jonathangraham]

Up until a certain point, the only acceptable phrasings are copyright and the circled-c (it's in one of the circulars on the Copyright Office's main page, I believe), so anything else would be invalid.

"Entire contents copyrighted" appears on a few books I was looking at. Comics Calvalcade #10 1945 for example.  I checked the 1945 catalog and didn't see anything but didn't go 23 years further.

but the courts basically ruled that the details don't always matter.

de minimis non curat lex

[Mark Warner]

That is fairly irrelevant. Even if it is a valid copyright it would have had to have been renewed after 28 years. So you should be checking renewals in 1973.

[jonathangraham]

That is fairly irrelevant. Even if it is a valid copyright it would have had to have been renewed after 28 years. So you should be checking renewals in 1973.

The question I'm getting at is: "Is that is proper notice?" If it isn't then doesn't that make it PD?  Does the renewal (which I'm sure is there) mean anything?