An obscure copyright law is letting the Internet Archive distribute books published 1923-1941

[doctorow]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/10/library-public-domain.html

…

[FGD135]

Good. There should be some interesting stuff from that period.

[Irontrousers]

The Internet Archive is a treasure and should be treated as such.

[robotech]

Good for them–but is their OpenLibrary program still violating copyright on books a lot newer than 1941?

[Clifton]

God damn it, ‘reticent’ does not mean ‘reluctant’.

[neutralgoodlich]

Time to dust off the book scanner
www.diybookscanner.org

[anon63581570]

I personally won’t hold my breath. Sure that clock looks like it’ll start, but when do the batteries get taken out again? Still, I believe Colbert was right in that cynicism is ignorance masquerading as wisdom.

And as Jason Scott put it: Something is better than Nothing. You people are doing something about the problem. Keep doing

[Mark_Morris]

“Colbert was right in that cynicism is ignorance masquerading as wisdom.”
That is a bunch of baloney. Never trust an establishment millionaire to give any real credit to people who have seen through the BS and call it so.

[davide405]

@Clifton

God damn it, ‘reticent’ does not mean ‘reluctant’.

Reticent is a subset of reluctant.

Reticent means: reluctant to speak (or communicate)

[jimp]

So, if I understand this rightly, all the copyright holder would have to do is scan a copy and offer it as an ebook on Amazon and this scheme falls over badly and people get sued?

And the Internet Archive is doing the scanning for the rights holders some of whom will figure this out once they start sniffing settlement money for a book that hasn’t made real money in decades…

[Pannoni4]

I’d wish this also could expand to magazines and newspapers, as those are a better representation of everyday life during those times. I’ll doubt classic movies like Gone With The Wind and the original Frankenstein will make the cut in their video collection, and even those are likely going to get renewed by the current studios due to their enduring popularity, along with many other artifacts of the “Jazz Age”. But just in time for the 2020s, a complete look back at the original “Roaring Twenties”, the Depression and FDR’s New Deal, right up until Pearl Harbor.