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Greg Bear, Others Cry Foul on Project Gutenberg Copyright Call
Nova Express writes "Recently a lot of science fiction stories from the 1950s and 60s (including work from still-living authors like Frederik Pohl and Jack Vance) have been showing up on Project Gutenberg as being in the public domain. However, according to science fiction writer Greg Bear and his wife Astrid Anderson Bear (daughter of Poul Anderson, some of whose works were among those put up), Project Gutenberg has made a mistake: 'After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and precedents, we have demonstrated conclusively that PG was making incorrect determinations regarding public domain status in many, many works that originally appeared in magazine form ... In general, Project Gutenberg is doing a tremendous service by making available texts that have truly long since fallen out of copyright, but they are clearly overstepping their original mandate. They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection.'"
Since the works in question were first published in the US, by American citizens, the US terms would still apply
The Berne Convention would seem to only require 50 years protection or the length in the country of origin, whichever is the lowest.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
Folks at Project Gutenberg are obviously aware of the potential for a lawsuit. They would like to have one, so that the decision on the copyright status of these works is made concrete.
Bruce Perens.