So, I log into one of my backup emails for the first time in 3 months or so (not the one I put on CP imprints, but an old Yahoo account reserved for signing up for things on websites) and discover that Scribd pulled the Mead Pistis Sophia and Lovecraft's "Festival" and "The Call of Cthulhu" in June-July after one of their bots flagged them as copyright violations.
Seems the Mead and "The Festival" already got restored but trying to view "The Call of Cthulhu" gets you redirected to a page about a commercial e-text of the same story from Harper Collins.
Owing to the USA's copyright laws being a convoluted mess, the status of Lovecraft's work where Scribd's servers are located is . . . complicated (where I am it's pretty clear-cut -- the whole lot's been public domain since the end of 2007). Anything first published before 1923 is public domain. After that date, it would depend on whether the copyrights were renewed before 28 years has expired from first publication, and it's far from clear that they were. Anyway I emailed Scribd's copyrights people back, waiting on a response.
No comments:
Post a Comment