Does copyright renewal of revised edition carry over to the original edition?

[bookem]

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

A textbook published in the U.S. (and no other country) was copyrighted in 1949. In 1957 the book was copyrighted as a revised edition under a different author's name (but referencing the original author's name in the book's title). In the copyright, "Limitation of Claim; New Matter" was indicated as "NM: revisions, updated work problems, and new illustrative material." The 1957 revised edition's copyright was renewed by the new author in 1985. The copyright on the original 1949 book was not renewed. Has the 1949 book fallen into the public domain?

 

[quincy]

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

A textbook published in the U.S. (and no other country) was copyrighted in 1949. In 1957 the book was copyrighted as a revised edition under a different author's name (but referencing the original author's name in the book's title). In the copyright, "Limitation of Claim; New Matter" was indicated as "NM: revisions, updated work problems, and new illustrative material." The 1957 revised edition's copyright was renewed by the new author in 1985. The copyright on the original 1949 book was not renewed. Has the 1949 book fallen into the public domain?

Has the 1949 book fallen into the public domain? Possibly.

What is the name of the textbook?

 

[bookem]

"Possibly" is enough for me to stay away from it. Thanks.

 

[quincy]

"Possibly" is enough for me to stay away from it. Thanks.

That is obviously the easiest thing to do.

In the US, any work published before 1923 is in the public domain - but you need to be sure to use the original work and not the work as modified by someone else. For example, black-and-white films published before 1923 are in the public domain but many of these have been changed (colorized, updated) and the modified versions have copyright protection. Only the original black-and-white, pre-1923 versions can be freely used.

Works published between 1923 and 1963 could be in the public domain if their copyrights were never renewed but, again, the same caveats as described above will apply.

And, works published before 1978 that did not have a proper copyright notice could potentially be in the public domain. Several of these works had their copyrights restored, however.

There are additional works in the public domain, as well (like works prepared for the US government).

Here is a link to the US Copyright Office for more information: http://www.copyright.gov

To complicate matters a little bit more, some works are no longer protected by copyright but could potentially be protected under trademark laws.

When looking to use any work created by someone else, a thorough investigation of rights is important so that you do not risk infringing.