Gene Expression

It seems to be down. Too many people wanting a glimpse I suppose?

Posted by: MPH | December 18, 2008 6:42 PM

Both working for me. I tried to get permission for an extract of the GToNS, and was charged $50USD. Are they allowed to put this up online?

Posted by: John S. Wilkins | December 18, 2008 8:12 PM

Are they allowed to put this up online? This is an interesting question. As I understand it, under UK copyright law the copyright on GToNS would normally expire at the end of 2032 (70 years after Fisher's death in 1962). (Prior to the UK extending copyright terms, the copyright would have expired 50 years after Fisher's death, or at the end of 2012. I presume the copyrights of existing works were extended in the UK as was done in the US.)

Fisher donated his copyrights to the University of Adelaide, but I suspect that would not make a difference in the copyright term. (Answering this would really require consulting an attorney with experience in Australian copyright law.) For what it's worth the copyright page of the variorum edition says "Copyright 1999 University of Adelaide", but I presume this refers to the added material and not to the text of the original work.

The folks at the Internet Archive (which hosts the Open Library) are not dummies when it comes to copyright law, so I presume that they either have it on good authority that the work is now in the public domain, or they received permission from the University of Adelaide. However the work on Open Library was actually scanned in by a library in India and it's the 1930 edition not the 1958 edition, which seems odd if the University of Adelaide were officially involved. So it may also be that this publication was not authorized, and that the book won't be truly freely available until January 1, 2033 -- over 100 years since its original publication.

Posted by: dev | December 18, 2008 10:13 PM

Sorry, I can't let this question go. Two more data points:

First, the US Copyright Office has one record for GToNS, showing a renewal of copyright in 1986 on the 1958 edition; this would have been at the end of the initial 28-year copyright term allowed by US law in 1958. The Copyright Term Extension Act would then have extended the copyright until 2053 in the US (95 years after the publication date).

However the work published by the Open Library is the 1930 edition, not the 195 edition, and it appears to have no copyright notice whatsoever. If such a work had been published in the US and was not registered with the US Copyright Office, then I believe it would not have had copyright protection at all and would have entered the public domain. By issuing a revised edition in 1958 Fisher would have addressed that problem (assuming it were a problem), since the 1958 edition would have qualified as a new work for purposes of US copyright law. (Note that the LoC record referenced above states "Basis of Claim: New Matter: revisions & expansion.")

So my conclusion at this point is that the 1958 edition of GToNS will not enter the public domain for many years, but that the copyright status of the 1930 edition is an open question. It's at least possible that the 1930 edition is in the public domain in the US (though not necessarily in other countries).

Posted by: dev | December 19, 2008 8:26 AM