Public Domain

I -- along with many others, no doubt -- am confused about how to determine if something is in the public domain.

Do any of you know of a FAQ or other document that discusses the guidelines or precedents for making this determination?

I have been following the Dead Sea Scrolls discussion here. But I have also noted that my King James Bible carries a copyright notice, as does my Pelican Shakespeare. What exactly do such copyright claims mean? Do I need someone's permission to quote from the King James Bible?

[A speaker from Canada at Federal Library and Information Center Committee meeting last week in D.C. noted Crown Copyright in the King James Bible. Could this possibly mean that I have to ask the Queen of England for permission to quote from the Bible?]

As another example, let's say I want to reprint a few lines from John Donne's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The poem appears in many anthologies. Does the current publisher of a compilation work containing this poem have the right to give or deny permission in this case? Do I even need to ask?

A recent permissions request to Dover Books (which specializes in printing what appear to me to be public domain works, and Dover itself doesn't print a copyright notice) has gone unanswered now for four months. My general experience is that publishers who are uncertain about the ownership of a work choose to be silent on permissions requests. What does one do when the publisher will not respond?

Dick Kaser
Executive Director
National Federation of Abstracting & Information Services 1518 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215 893-1561 215 893-1564 Received on Tue Mar 26 1996 - 13:59:21 GMT