[Foundation-l] Stroop report

Tue Mar 25 15:41:42 UTC 2008

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 5:54 AM, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am talking about cases where no actual copyright holder can claim
> anything, not about other cases.
>
> I see at least two cases where this occurs:
>
> 1. As Ray mentioned, the copyright holder was a corporation which is
> bankrupt, and no entity has acquired the rights. This can be determined
> fairly accurately.
>

Maybe, though it is not uncommon for creditors to acquire copyright holdings
from defunct companies, especially if publishing was part of the business of
the company.

>
> 2. If the death date of the author is not recorded anywhere, especially
> not in any national databases, such as the Library of Congress, how
> could you claim any copyright? This is fairly common for translators of
> minor works before WW2. If this date is not known, no copyright holder
> can claims anything, as the burden of the proof is on the accusation.
> Again I don't talk about the fact that the heirs are certainly not aware
> of their rights if the date of author's death is not known.
>

This case I don't understand at all.  Either A) you have no reason to
believe the author is dead, in which case the point seems moot since you
ought to be acting on the assumption the author is still alive up to quite
substantial ages.  Or B) you somehow have confidence that the author is
dead, even though it wasn't formally recorded, in which case one ought to
assume that the author's heirs could easily demonstrate this in court.
There is a world of difference between "the death date is not publicly
known" and "the death date is not known".  The former can happen for a
variety of reasons (e.g. publication under a pseudonym, change of country of
residence, etc.) and yet the rights holder or his heirs may still be
entirely aware of the relevant information and able to provide it in court.

-Robert A. Rohde