Copyright Questions

[rjordan393]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania.

In 1992 and 1996, two books were published and copyrighted. Before both books were published, they appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer as a series and then expanded into book form later.
My questions are:
Does the federal government recognize any material printed for public viewing as being under the copyright laws, even though the newspaper did not apply for a copyright? (I do not know if they did or not)
If the answer is yes, then how is it that a publisher can put a copyright on material that the federal government already recognized as copyright?
The last question may sound a bit contrary to the first two.
If newspaper series, articles, etc are considered copyright, then what is the reason behind it? My opinion is that anything printed in a newspaper belongs to the public domain. Your Thoughts and Replies.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania.

In 1992 and 1996, two books were published and copyrighted. Before both books were published, they appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer as a series and then expanded into book form later.
My questions are:
Does the federal government recognize any material printed for public viewing as being under the copyright laws, even though the newspaper did not apply for a copyright? (I do not know if they did or not)
If the answer is yes, then how is it that a publisher can put a copyright on material that the federal government already recognized as copyright?
The last question may sound a bit contrary to the first two.
If newspaper series, articles, etc are considered copyright, then what is the reason behind it? My opinion is that anything printed in a newspaper belongs to the public domain. Your Thoughts and Replies.

A copyright attaches automatically to creative and original works, this whether the works are registered with the US Copyright Office or not.

The Philadelphia Inquirer may have acquired licensing rights from the author to publish the series of articles, or the author might have been employed by the newspaper and shared rights to the written works with the newspaper. The author of the books could be the author of the newspaper series or could have acquired rights to the newspaper series from the original holder of the copyrights. But, whatever the status of the copyrights at the time of the newspaper publication, the written words (if creative and original) were protected under US copyright laws.

The fact that the public was allowed to read what was written never meant, and it does not mean, that the copyrights are lost to the copyright holder or that the works have fallen into the public domain for anyone to use without permission from the author/copyright holder. The copyrights remain with the copyright holder/author unless expressly licensed or transferred by the copyright holder to another.

Your understanding of the public domain is incorrect. Public domain materials are those materials that are no longer protected under copyright laws for one or more of several possible reasons.

The most common reason a creative and original work falls into the public domain is the age of the material. In the US, works published before 1923 are in the public domain. Works published between 1923 and 1963, where copyrights in the works were never renewed, are now in the public domain. Works published before 1978 without proper copyright notices affixed may be in the public domain (although many/most have had the copyrights renewed). The list goes on.

What is your interest in the newspaper series and the books?


Links to Public Domain information:

Copyright Term and the Public Domain, Cornell: http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
Welcome to the Public Domain, Stanford: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/

 

[quincy]

My interest is what is revealed in these books. Their titles are "America: What Went Wrong" and "America: Who Stole The Dream".
They give an indictment of past and present administrations, the congress, the irs and wall st. This group of people are responsible for the dismantling of the Middle Class for the last 35 years. After I read those books, I thought there would be changes to stop this travesty. But it was business as usual. Now finally we have Donald Trump running for office and he is appealing to the older generation and hopefully the younger because he is standing up to the status quo and they hate him for it. These books were authored by Two Philadelphia Inquirer reporters. Their Names are Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. The information in the books came from the people affected by government policies but mostly from city and government records. I have no reason to doubt that any information revealed is incorrect. If every voter would purchase these books, then Donald Trump would be the favorite to win the presidential election.
I can tell by your response that you are an educated man; so you must know what has been happening to our Country.
To name a few travesties:
1. A run away National Debt.
2. Loss of manufacturing jobs.
3. Unfair Trade.
4. The 1986 Alternative Minimum Tax which was supposed to be fair turned out to be unfair.
5. Corporations were allowed to keep their deductions for interest payments, while individuals loss most of theirs. This allowed corporations to
restructure which resulted in people losing their jobs, both white and blue collar.
6. The following travesty hurts the most:
American Insurance Group (AIG) fired all their computer programmers in their North Jersey office so that they could bring in foreigners to
replace them at lower salary. The programmers were told to train their replacements or they would be fired immediantly and lose their
severance pay.
7. Immigration is out of control and there is abuse of the Visa system.
8. Corporations and the wealthy are not paying their fair share of tax's.
The list goes on but the above will suffice for now.

I hope I answered your questions about copyright law and the public domain to your satisfaction.

This forum is not a platform for political debates but rather a place where people can get their legal questions addressed. There are other places on the internet for discussions of the type you sound interested in starting here.

I am happy to hear, however, that you read books. I wish more people did.

 

[rjordan393]

Thank You,
I understand. I will visit other forums to discuss this matter further.

 

[quincy]

Thank You,
I understand. I will visit other forums to discuss this matter further.

You're welcome, rjordan393.