Ron,
Thanks very much for your reply to my posting! You've cleared up the question about copyright term if the book was published by a company, and I'm glad to hear the 1908 directory is in public domain (as you might guess).
Ron B. Thomson <thomson[_at_]chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
> First, if the material you want is still under copyright (e.g., you
> wanted to copy a 1950 directory) and the owner is now not known, you
> can apply to the Canadian Copyright Board for a special licence to use
> the material provided you have searched and are willing to pay a
> (generally small) reserve fee (really a bond for about 5 years).
This is very interesting! Does the Canadian Copyright Board have a web site, by chance? I'd like to check into this a bit more.
> Second, don't let people tell you that US court ruling concerning
> databases (the so-called Feist rules) apply and that directories are
> not protected by copyright. In Canada they are protected by copyright
> and copying them is an infringement for which Canadian courts will
> give remedy.
I've heard of that case law, but wasn't going to make any assumptions about whether it, or any other US laws, applys in Canada.
Recently I was in the Library of Congress' map collection, looking for an old map of Nova Scotia that was out of copyright so I could scan it and put it on the web. The guy helping me said I could use maps published by the Canadian government, as things produced by the gov't are not copyrightable. I know that's true for publications by the U.S. gov't, but I didn't want to assume the same is true in Canada. Later, the head librarian there said that publications of the Canadian gov't ARE copyrighted. Is she right? I got my map - published in Boston in 1898.
Thanks again for your help.
Lisa
Lisa D. Petersen Across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.lisap[_at_]ziplink.net
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