Has the copyright lapsed on 36 year old books?

Hi Craig,

I've looked a little bit into copyright issues, since I've been interested in putting some books which are no longer under copyright online.... (However, I found that scanning these old books can be a lot of work!)

Anyhow, here's the law (in the United States) as I understand it....

First, for your specific case, for works copyrighted between 1964 and 1977, these are copyrighted automatically for 95 years since the date of publication.

For works copyrighted before 1964, they are copyrighted for 28 years, unless the copyright was extended, in which case they are copyrighted for 95 years from the date of publication.

Works created on or after 1978 are copyrighted for the lifetime of the author plus an additional 70 years.

I hope that helps....

See the link below for more details from the US Copyright Office....

- Dien

P.S. I'm not a lawyer, so please don't take this as legal advice.... It's just how I've interpreted the document I've linked to below....


How Long Copyright Protection Endures....