I do not practice copyright law so this is primarily based on general legal theory. First, I believe you are quoting the current copyright law regarding the author receiving copyright protection for 70 years after his death. Was English copyright law circa 1950 the same as it is now? American law wasn’t. At that time, a United States copyright was good for 27 years and could be renewed one time for an additional 27 years. The United States has now altered our law to match the copyright law of the rest of the world. Secondly, even if the 70 year period now applies to new works, does it apply retroactively to works originally copyrighted in 1913, the year Androcles and the Lion appeared? Thirdly, I believe your comment that the *Roman alphabet* version of Androcles is copyrighted is incorrect. Copyrights now protect the author’s interest for all representations of the work, including print and electronic media such as tapes, videos, film, stage productions, etc. Therefore, I would expect that a copyright would prevent you from presenting a protected work in any media that is understandable by others. Clearly, you could not publish an English language literary work transliterated into the Cyrillic or Greek alphabets without having first obtained the copyright owner’s permission. The fact that most English speakers would be unable to read it is irrelevant. Logically, this precludes publishing a copyrighted work in the Shaw alphabet as well.
The copyright page of the Penguin Books edition of Androcles and the Lion states that “[a]ny non-copyright work may be transliterated into the Shaw Alphabet without permission. In the case of a work still in copyright, however, permission must, of course, be obtained from the owner of the copyright.” It goes on to state that “…business connected with Bernard Shaw’s plays is now in the hands of THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, PLAYWRIGHTS AND COMPOSERS at 94 Drayton Gardens, London SW10 (Telephone, Fremantle 6642), to which all inquiries and applications for licences to perform should be addressed and performing fees paid.”
Whether the society still represents Shaw’s plays is unknown. But it should be checked as the purpose of copyright law is to protect artists’ works. The relevant issue should not be whether one thinks it likely one would be caught publishing a copyrighted work. Under that theory, one would decide whether to shoplift based on the prevalence of security measures. :)
Paige Gabhart
-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Birkenhead [mailto:mixsynth@...]
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 9:36 AM
To: shavian@...
Subject: Re: [shavian] Re: getting hold of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion
Copyright for books provides for protection 70 years after the death of the
author. Since Shaw died in 1950 (IIRC), I think the *Roman alphabet* version
of Androcles is still copyrighted until at least 2020.
I'm not sure that *Shaw alphabet* text can even be copyrighted at all. Even
if technically it could be, how would the majority of bureaucrats even find
out at all if the Shavian text they were looking at were a straight copy
from the original book?
However it's worth checking, if we are to produce a commercially-available
product that would be easily spotted as a reproduction of the original book.
Does anyone have a copy handy? Could someone check the inside cover for
copyright notices?
Hugh B
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <allegrox_2000@...>
To: <shavian@...>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 11:47 PM
Subject: [shavian] Re: getting hold of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion
> --- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@s...>
wrote:
> It is a shame it's still under
> > Copyright?. I could have made a copy and forwarded you the original.
> > Does anyone know who owns the Copyright?
> >
> > Regards, Paul V.
>
> Is it still under copyright? If it were, I'd expect the copyright holder
to have published
> a new edition by now.
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
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