At 10:10 AM 4/3/2006, Marcia Peri wrote:
>I want to thank everyone who kindly responded to my inquiry 
>regarding fanzines and copyright.   The general consensus is that 
>fanzines were in fact considered published and that any from the 
>1930's would be in the public domain.

Not so fast.  The key issue here is whether the fanzine was a general 
publication or a limited publication.  A limited publication is one 
"which communicates the contents of a manuscript to a definitely 
selected group and for a limited purpose, without the right of 
diffusion, reproduction, distribution, or sale."  That means that if 
the fanzine was only available to a small, select group, and not 
anyone could become a member of that group, for copyright purposes 
the fanzine would continue to be considered to be unpublished.  If 
anyone could get a copy of the fanzine, then it would be considered 
to be published.  And if it was published without notice or renewal, 
according to my copyright chart at 
<http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm>, 
it would be in the public domain.

As always with copyright, possible risk is just as important as the 
law.  If the article in the fanzine was written by JD Salinger or if 
publishing the article might embarrass an author or his/her heirs, I 
might be more cautious and seek legal advice.  And as always, this is 
not legal advice, but only information.

Peter



Peter B. Hirtle
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