Our quarterly is online & we didn't do it

Since 1947 our office has printed a 28 page quarterly called Historical Wyoming, and still does.

This is cool for me since I get a story in every issue because I'm the Assistant Wyoming County (NY) Historian. Our office is a branch of county government, has been since 1946. Other people also submit articles once in a while. But I digress ....

There is a website that has out of copyright NY State newspapers online. In fact our office even sent him some microfilm to put historical newspaper images in PDF format online. To that extent it makes going through newspapers easier.

Today my boss was doing a search on said website and what should come up in the hit list? Forty years worth of Historical Wyoming, 1947-1987.

We are still in print, we even sell back issues.

Now I'm not sure how the copyright law effects different time periods. I'll have to pull out the early ones to see if it has a copyright info.

Since 1977, when the office started bulk mailing it carries that notice "Statement of Ownership, Management & Circulation Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685. Title of Publication: Historical Wyoming publication #104990. etc."

Since at least 1975 a copy of every issue has been sent to the Library of Congress. And you can see here they have some of our early issues as well.

In the front of every issue it says, "Historical Wyoming is published quarterly by the Office of the Wyoming County Historian."

We are going to email tomorrow and ask where he got them. To the best of my knowledge he takes it from microfilm, and we've never had it microfilmed.

The main question, is he infringing on the copyright or is it okay before a certain date?

Any thoughts, opinions, specs on law is greatly appreciated.

Thanks Steam and Medi! My boss was trying to find something relevant online in copyright law, but, yeah, didn't work too well. I told her I would come here and ask. If anyone would know, AWers would have an answer.

OK throwing this out there.....
Looking at copyright guide, we might not be protected up to 1964, but after we should. Still only we should have reprint rights, otherwise he would have to contact each individual author (be they alive or dead) to get reprint permission, wouldn't he?

I'll PM you Medievalist for those samples.

Yes, we were discussing it today to drop it in the hands of the county attorney.

Namatu, he did not contact our office first to ask permission.

We were quite surprised since we have been in phone contact with him before. Even sent him microfilm of local out of copyright newspapers to put online. So we are quite stunned by this.

Good thought Thoth. No, it has never been microfilmed by us. Now the local library has every issue, unless they sent it out to be microfilmed. They would have told us though so we could have made it a shared cost thing (as we do with having the issues bound) and gotten a copy for us too. If it was microfilmed by the library 99% of the time a master roll is sent to the NY State Archives. I don't see it listed.

I think my boss will approach this diplomatically, and not get a flippy, and just ask him to take after 1963 (or 1978) down. I looked at earlier issues and they didn't have a copyright mark.

I thought it didn't have to be marked to be covered after 1978?

There are some confusing gray areas if its before 1964, or between 1964-1978 if you didn't do this or that its in the public domain before 1978 or some other such thing...

That's what I'm hoping too thoth. It has always clearly had that blurb with the title, where it is published and by who. They all have volume numbers. Tried to call the copyright office today from work, but was on hold too long.

We were bantering that at work Library4. It might generate some interest in subscriptions. If we let him keep the old issues up there (1947-1987) or some of them, he would need a blurb that we are still in print, and where to subscribe. Since everything else on his site is out of print newspapers (or papers now in public domain) we don't want people assuming we are out of print as well.

Thank you Medievalist. I'll go to this page when I go to work so my boss can read it over. I still plan on talking to the copyright office as well.

I emailed the copyright office since it is so hard to get through on the phone. I'll keep you posted.

Answers from copyright office

Got an answer back from the copyright office. Explained what I said in post #1 in this thread. Then asked the following questions. Their answers are in red:

1)Are any of our back issues copyright protected?

Works published from 1923-1963 with a copyright notice received an initial 28 years of protection and could be renewed for an additional 67 years for a total of 95 years. If not renewed, they are now in the public domain.

Works published from 1923-1963 without a copyright notice are in the public domain.

Works published from 1964-1977 with a copyright notice received 28 years for the first term; and an automatic extension of 67 years for second term for a total of 95 years.

When a work is in the public domain, there are no restrictions as to its use, with no restrictions as to copying, preparing derivative works or distributing copies and without regard for the other exclusive rights of the former copyright owner as enumerated in Section 106 of the copyright law.

Any changes made to a public domain work (the inclusion of a new forward, additional text, etc.) might be subject to copyright protection if the new work contains enough copyrightable subject matter to sustain a claim. In no way, however, should that new registration be construed as bringing the original work "out" of public domain; copyright protection would extend only to the changes made and not to the original work.


2)Can we now copyright any of our back issues?

Unpublished works can be registered at anytime.

3)How does one copyright a quarterly magazine? Every issue, by volume, by year?

You may register each single serial issue or as a group of serials. For additional information, see http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ62.pdf and http://www.copyright.gov/forms/formseg.pdf.

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I needed clarification on some of the answers and sent the following back to them:

In your answer to question #1 you talk about works published from 1964-1977 WITH a copyright notice. What about works that were published and distributed (500+) without the notice? Are they in public domain or no?

In #2 when I asked if we can now copyright any of our back issues you answered UNPUBLISHED works can be registered anytime. What about works already published, our back issues? Any in the time frame from 1947 to now that we can go back and get copyright on that didn't carry the notice at time of printing and distribution?

Waiting for the answer...............

I'm thinking we're screwed for sure pre-1977, not sure about the ones from 1977-87 that are online.

Thanks Soccer Mom. I figure copyright issues might be helpful to others too, you know? Definitely going to change things with our quarterly and start figuring in official copyright cost into the yearly office budget.