RE: Notice on unpublished excerpt

From: Elizabeth Townsend Gard <elizabeth[_at_]townsend.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:30:30 -0500

I don't usually weigh in, but one of my expertise's is copyright and unpublished works.

A copyright notice is no longer required any works. The Heir should register the diary as an unpublished work with the copyright office. www.copyright.gov About the requirements of copyright, the copyright on the unpublished work lasts the life of the author plus seventy years. When did the grandparent die? If it was longer than seventy years, than the unpublished work is in the public domain, and does not carry copyright.

What is the Heir trying to do by the copyright notice requirement? How long an excerpt is it? The Heir cannot keep others from quoting from the excerpt (fair use). In what form is the Author using the excerpt (on the Internet, in a book, as part of an anthology?) It doesn't necessarily make a difference legally, but it could on a practical level.

Elizabeth Townsend Gard
London School of Economics
Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society

-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property [mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Dodi Schultz Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 5:30 PM
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property Subject: [CNI-(C)] Notice on unpublished excerpt

A fellow writer has posed a question about copyright notice wording, and I'm hoping that one of the legal authorities on this list will have the answer.

An individual ("The Heir") has received an inheritance, including an unpublished memoir, from a grandparent. The Heir, a writer, plans eventually to edit the memoir and see to its publication. (The grandparent was not a writer but was prominent in another field and in fact had published two volumes of memoirs; this will be the third.)

Meanwhile, another writer ("The Author") has become aware of the content of the memoir and wishes to include a short excerpt in a work now in progress. The Heir is agreeable to this but wishes to require, among other conditions, that the excerpt be accompanied by a copyright notice.

Yes, The Heir is aware that it's not required but wishes it to appear nevertheless. No, the memoir has not been registered with the Copyright Office.

Title 17 specifies that the notice, if used, must include the name of the copyright owner (that would be The Heir, not the grandparent, yes?) and the "year of first publication"--but this material has not been published. I can't find instructions applying to unpublished materials. What year should be used? The year of the grandparent's death? Or the year that The Author's work, containing this brief excerpt from the unpublished work, appears?

Or should The Heir rush to register the full memoir and use THIS year?

--DS

#############################################################
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
     the mailing list <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>.

To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <CNI-COPYRIGHT-off[_at_]cni.org> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <CNI-COPYRIGHT-digest[_at_]cni.org> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <CNI-COPYRIGHT-index[_at_]cni.org> To postpone your subscription, E-mail to <CNI-COPYRIGHT-null[_at_]cni.org> To resume mail list message delivery from postpone mode, E-mail to <CNI-COPYRIGHT-feed[_at_]cni.org> Send administrative queries to <CNI-COPYRIGHT-request[_at_]cni.org>

Visit the CNI-COPYRIGHT e-mail list archive at <https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/>. Received on Tue Feb 28 2006 - 04:30:30 GMT