On the copyright subject on hand... here is some info on when publications become public domain from project gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto
I`m thinking the Powell book may fall into Rule 1.
Rule 1
Works first published before January 1, 1923 with proper copyright notice entered the public domain no later than 75 years from the date copyright was first secured. Hence, all works whose copyrights were secured before 1923 are now in the public domain, regardless of where they were published. (This is the rule Project Gutenberg uses most often)
Works published and copyrighted 1923-1977 retain copyright for 95 years. No such works will enter the public domain until 2019 unless one of the other rules applies.
Rule 2
Works first created on or after January 1, 1978 enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the author if the author is a natural person. (Nothing will enter the public domain under this rule until at least January 1, 2049.)
Rule 3
Works first created on or after January 1, 1978 which are created by a corporate author enter the public domain 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation whichever occurs first. (Nothing will enter the public domain under this rule until at least January 1, 2074.)
Rule 4
Works created before January 1, 1978 but not published before that date are copyrighted under rules similar to rules 2 and 3 above, except that in no case will the copyright on a work not published prior to January 1, 1978 expire before December 31, 2002. If the work *is* published before December 31, 2002, its copyright will not expire before December 31, 2047. (This rule copyrights a lot of manuscripts that we would otherwise think of as public domain because of their age.)
Rule 5
If a substantial number of copies were printed and distributed in the U.S. prior to March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice, and the work is of entirely American authorship, or was first published in the United States, the work is in the public domain in the U.S. (Note that we cannot clear items printed/published outside of the U.S. under this rule)
Rule 6
Rule 6 is currently under testing and revision. This section describes GATT exceptions to Rule 6. A future version of Rule 6 will describe the steps for demonstrating non-renewal to determine public domain.
Works published before 1964 needed to have their copyrights renewed in their 28th year, or they`d enter into the public domain. Some books originally published outside of the US by non-Americans are exempt from this requirement, under GATT. Works from before 1964 were automatically renewed if ALL of these apply:
* At least one author was a citizen or resident of a foreign country (outside the US) that`s a party to the applicable copyright agreements. (Almost all countries are parties to these agreements.)
* The work was still under copyright in at least one author`s "home country" at the time the GATT copyright agreement went into effect for that country (January 1, 1996 for most countries).
* The work was first published abroad, and not published in the United States until at least 30 days after its first publication abroad.
If you can prove that one of the above does not apply, AND if you can prove that copyright was not renewed, then the work is in the public domain. For US authors and publications, non-renewal is the hard part to demonstrate.
To prove an item was not renewed, you need to do an extensive search of renewals in Library of Congress records (or you could get a letter from the author or publisher attesting that there was no renewal). The Library of Congress provides a for-fee copyright renewal search service, visit
http://www.copyright.gov
Please read the document about copyright renewal online at:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/renewals.html before attempting to prove public domain status of a work published between 1923-1963. We have a separate "Rule 6 HOW-TO" for working under Rule 6.
Rule 8
U.S. Government and Crown copyright. Items published by the United States Government do not have copyright protection in the US. We need to be careful with this rule, because some items distributed by the U.S. Government might have been authored by other entities who are entitled to a copyright. In the U.K. and, Canada, Crown copyright lasts for 50 years for items published by the government.
(looks like they skipped rule 7)
