Template talk:R:Fowler's 1926

A discussion regarding copyright
Am I right to assume, given that it is about 83 years old, that Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) is in the public domain? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nope. Works published after January 1, 1923 received a 28 year copyright, followed by a 28 year renewal term (in this case renewal would have had to occur in 1954), which would take the copyright to 1982 - but in 1978, all subsisting copyrights got a 20 year extension, and in 1998 they got another 19 years, meaning that if the original copyright in this work was renewed in 1954, then the copyright will run to 2021, a total of 95 years from publication. So the question is, was the copyright renewed? Might be able to find out on the Internet, but if you can't let me know and I'll swing by the Copyright Office. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * God, how complex! Well, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage begins: “The first edition went through several reprints. A reprint whose copyright page mentions ‘1954’ as the most recent reprint notes that reprints in 1930 and 1937 were ‘with corrections…’ The second edition, published in 1965, involved a light revision by Sir Ernest Gowers.” –This seems to imply that the copyright was renewed in 1954; what do you conclude from it? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 10:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably renewed if reprinted, but not necessarily - sometimes publishers copyright the second edition and forget to renew the copyright as to the first. bd2412 T 19:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks; do you mind finding out for certain? BTW, does my inclusion of the quotation under début (“début, débutant(e). Début can only be pronounced as French, & should not be used by any one who shirks from the necessary eﬀort.”) infringe copyright, if it still exists? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No infringement there, the portion quoted is far too small a proportion of the whole to raise a complaint. bd2412 T 22:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Aah, that’s good. So how big would the amount quoted need to be before infringing copyright? And would a lot of little quotes in various entries cumulatively constitute copyright infringement? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 10:14, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There are actually two threshhold considerations here, one being de minimis use (that is, too small an amount to raise copyright concerns) and fair use. The threshold for de minimis use is much lower, and the current use is de minimis. A lot of little quotes in various entries would rise to the level of needing to make a fair use argument, and one that I'm not sure would prevail. We would have to show, for example, that there isn't some free source from which we could have gotten equivalent material. bd2412 T 00:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, in the case of the portion quoted in the entry for, yes, I’m pretty sure we could find someone else, somewhere else, who also asserts that “Début can only be pronounced as French…”, but that wouldn’t really be equivalent, since I’m quoting Fowler because he’s Fowler — he is an authority, so quoting someone else would not be an invocation of that authority. Am I making sense? Is this a valid argument legally for fair use? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What you can do is reduce the quote to a few words, paraphrase the rest, and characterize it as a citation. bd2412 T 22:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Reduced; how’s that? †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is perfect. The rest of the comment is sort of a tongue-in-cheek expression of opinion, but the part you've kept is an assertion of fact - and facts are not copyrightable. <i style="background:lightgreen">bd2412</i> T 17:34, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Great. Well, thanks for all that. I’ll now copy this discussion to the reference template’s talk page. <font style="color:darkred">†  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)