With the publication of entire books of information that we didn’t create, copyright is a sensitive issue – and we treat it as such.

All of the information we have published in this project fits into one of two categories:

  • Information that is no longer subject to copyright and is now in the public domain.
  • Information where we have received permission from the copyright owner to publish their works.

Public domain
Copyright on many older works in the U.S. expired if it is pre-1923. Material that was post 1923 that did not have the copyright actively renewed prior to 1963 is also public domain. However it’s difficult to tell if the copyright was actually renewed so in most case we avoid these publications.

In Canada and Britain the copyright expires at a time based on the author’s death. Again in many cases it’s difficult to determine the exact date.

In either case we’ve attempted to be respectful of the copyright. When we’re seriously in doubt we’ve just set aside the publication and not included it.

There are also some cases where copyright is not in effect. Pricing information is one example – it’s no secret that McDonalds charges $2 for a Big Mac.

Permission
With much of these works it’s not even possible to tell who actually owns the copyright. Publishers get bought and sold, companies go out of business, any variety of things can happen in 100+ years that makes it virtually impossible to tell in some cases whether the copyright is intact and if it is, who actually owns it. Again in most cases if I’m able to pin down the copyright owner and I’m not reasonably certain the copyright has expired, I’ve attempted to contact the owner and seek permission. The single biggest difficulty there is determining the current copyright owner.

In any event, I am not a lawyer so my assumptions above are based on what I’ve been able to glean from my research on copyright laws in various countries. All of the material presented here I’ve either recieved permission, or to the best of my knowledge there is no copyright on the information. Where seriously in doubt about a publication copyright I’ve simply not scanned the publication.

If you are the current copyright holder and I’ve published your material in error please contact me immediately and I’ll get your concerns looked after. You can email [email protected] with this information.

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