Check if a book is in the public domain? How do you go about finding out if copyright on a book is expired? The particular book I'm looking at is from 1923 published in Europe, I live in Canada. Ideally I'd like a method to figure this out myself for other books. I've read that the answer depends on a few factors: Where it was published When it was published Does it has a copyright notice Was copyright notice renewed (?) Where the person using the book is (?) Figuring out the first two aspects is obvious but I'm less clear on points 3 and 4 as well as determining whether the work is copyrighted still once I have all this information. edit: Added point 5. Does where the person using the material matter? Or does enough countries agree on a common copyright policy in 2015 that this is irreverent?
As mentioned in the comments, there is no general method for this, but there are certainly good ways to get started. Note that copyright status is determined on a country by country basis, so "the country" in this answer refers to one you are living in, in this case Canada. First, there's a quick test to determine if a work is definitely copyright. Most countries have signed the Berne Convention which provides for copyright lasting a minimum of 50 years after the author's death for literary works. In general, it also provides that a country treat works published in other Berne countries as if it were published in its own, with respect to copyright. I'll call this the equality rule. So we have that: If the country acceded to the Berne Convention before the publication date of the book and the author is still living, or died less than 50 years ago, the book is under copyright. If the above did not apply, there are still steps you can take: Look up the country's copyright term. Find the legislation that established the copyright term. If the country has changed copyright terms over the years, the legislation will often provide for how books published before term changes are to be treated with respect to the new legislation. For Berne parties, does the country apply the rule of the shorter term? This is the main exception to the equality rule. The country may choose to use the country of origin's term instead of its own if it is shorter. If this is the case, then, you must read the country of origin's legislation with respect to copyright terms. The vast majority of legislation introduced affecting copyright terms has served to increase its length. Thus, if you pretend that the current copyright term applied back when the book was published, and find that the book is no longer under copyright, you can almost always assume that is actually the case. For an example of how complicated this can be, see this analysis on whether public domain works in the US are copyright in the UK. The UK has been a Berne party from the start, but has at times changed its term length, and whether or not it applies the rule of the shorter term. The US has only been a Berne party since 1989. Before this, they required copyright registration and didn't always base the copyright term on the author's death. In general, the factors you mentioned have the following effect: For Berne parties (as of publication date), this is only relevant for those applying the rule of the shorter term. Important to know this date when reading copyright legislation, as the applicable term often depends on this. Mostly relevant to pre-Berne accession, especially in the US Same as 3. Important, to know what laws ultimately apply. An additional factor you usually need: date of author's death (longest living author in case of multiple authors), as the term is based on this for Berne parties.
A translation is a devivative work - the copyright owner has the exclusive right to these So, yes, translation is prima facie copyright infringement. Strictly speaking, if you translate it, it's a derivative work because you exercised creativity in making the translation; what Google translate does is not a derivative work, it's a copy because there is no creativity. Either way, only the copyright owner can do (or authorise) this. Whether it's legal or not depends on if what you are doing falls within one of the exceptions to the applicable copyright law such as fair use or fair dealing. Attributing the original author does not, of itself, allow translation. Additionally, I'm not able to find the copyright documentation for the site link I provided above. What is "copyright documentation"? Copyright exists the moment a work is created and no further documentation is required. Essentially, I could translate the whole documentation by myself to avoid this problem. No, you can't - see above. If copy-pasting the google translate is illegal, then exactly how much must I edit, move around sentences, change words, and such until the text is no longer plagiarized? All of it. If you were, based on your own knowledge of the software, to write a manual without any copying o the existing manual, that would not be copyright infringement. Is this plagiarism or copyright infringement? It's copyright infringement - plagiarism is an academic misconduct issue not a legal one. where can I check the copyright for the above link? The site you linked has "Copyright © 2020 Acquia, Inc. All Rights Reserved" in the bottom left corner which identifies the copyright holder, the date and prohibits all copying ("all rights reserved"). This isn't necessary but it is helpful. If you really want to do this, contact Acquia, Inc and ask for permission.
There is something wrong-sounding about that claim. Owning a thing (such as a book) means that you can dispose of it however you want. If it is a physical book, then unless this is a book of top secret classified information, the US government has no control over the item, nor does the copyright holder have any right to prevent you from giving away your copy. Electronic books, however, are another matter, since often you don't buy such books, you buy a license to use the book (like a software license). The license terms of an electronic book could be subject to various controls, and the license might be non-transferable. The underlying logic of this is that under the doctrine of first sale, you are allowed to do whatever you want with intellectual property that you buy, and therefore to restrict re-distribution of electronic IP, software especially is typically not itself sold, and just the permission to use it is. If this is an electronic book, the copyright holder would be able (though not necessarily willing) to permit you to transfer your copy to someone else. Of course you can't give a copy to two people unless you have two licenses.
Yes. The copyright owner of a work has the exclusive right to "reproduce the copyrighted work" or to make "derivative works" of it. 17 USC 106. Copyright law is older than the photocopier, and it applies to copies made by means of any technology. If your intent is to duplicate the protected work, whether you do it by tracing, photocopying, or even freehand, you are infringing that right. It is possible that you could squeeze into one of the copyright exceptions, such as fair use, but these are much narrower than people tend to assume they are (especially outside of the U.S.), and they boil down to: "Well, yes, I copied your copyrighted work, but..." The bottom line is: is it copyrighted? Did you copy it, in whole or in part? Then, unless you have a very good reason, you've infringed the copyright. Whether you do it by means of tracing paper, jellygraph, or iPhone doesn't matter.
According to US law according to Cornell, copyright applies to derivative works. A derivative work is an original work based on a previous work (Definitions), so the adaptations would be copyrightable unless they were held to be unoriginal. In general, the courts don't require much creativity to consider a work original. Translations are original works. Therefore, the adaptations are almost certainly under copyright, while the originals remain public domain.
Probably Not The creator or owner of a piece of software does not in general have any copyright over the output when others run the software, unless that output is itself a derivative work of input supplied by the copyright owner, or forming part of the software. In this case the translation is a derivative work of the 19th century original, but that is assumed to be in the public domain. SAo google has no copyright on the resulting translation. But copyright protection is only available for &quot;original works of authorship&quot;. (See 17 USC 102 in the US, and similar laws elsewhere.) A machine-produced translation is not an original work, and it is surely not then work of the author of the overall book. However, the author would still have a copyright on the book as a whole. The legal situation is no different than if the author had simply quoted a 19th century work. One may incorporate public domain works into a later work, and that later work is still protected by copyright, provided that there is enough original contentr to make the work as a whole &quot;an original work of authorship&quot;. Others may use the PD [arts, or the original from which they are taken, but not the rest of the work (beyond what fair use would allow in any case). For example, I have made a number of posts here on LAW.SE. In several,of those I quoted sections from one of the numbers of The Federalist. That 19th century work is in the public domain. Anyone else may re-quote the passages I quoted from it. But that gives them no rights to use the rest of my work, except as the CC-BY-SA license or fair use permits. So the author would retain copyright on the book as a whole. But soemoen who merely quotes or uses the translated 19th century article but none of the original parts of the book would not be infringing that copyright. I say probably in the header, because I do not have any actual case-law to cite here. It is possible that some court has rules otherwise on the subject of the copyright on the output of a software tool, but I strongly doubt it.
In the US, the original author still owns the copyright, unless the original work was out of copyright (in which case no one owns the copyright): copyright is not granted for just pressing a "scan" button, and mechanical reproductions are not eligible for copyright (copyright protects creativity, and a scan involves zero creativity). To quote 313.4(A) ("Mere Copies") of the Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition: A work that is a mere copy of another work of authorship is not copyrightable. The Office cannot register a work that has been merely copied from another work of authorship without any additional authorship. [...] Examples: [...] Photocopying, scanning, or digitizing a literary work. That doesn't necessarily mean the repository can't put any restriction on your use of the copy; the repository may have a terms of service. Terms of service are rooted in contract law, not copyright; just because the work is in the public domain, doesn't force the repository to show it to anyone who asks, and they can force you to agree to a contract first. The enforceability of that contract is fact-dependent.
Your title and your question are totally different. If someone pirates a book, makes printed copies, and sells them for profit, that's the point where it switches from plain copyright infringement to being criminal copyright infringement. Which means jail instead of paying damages is possible. If you buy one of these printed copies, not knowing that they have been created illegally, and not being willfully ignorant that the printed copies were created illegal, then you didn't commit copyright infringement yourself. Since you are asking the question, it's obvious that you now know that there was copyright infringement, and buying any more copies would be encouraging copyright infringement with no excuses for you. You can be sued for damages. It is unlikely to happen since suing takes likely more effort than getting any damages from you is worth. The correct thing to do is ask the seller for your money back and destroy the copies. If they don't refund your money you can inform the copyright holder.