Copyright Status of Works

[Brandon Staggs]

If you are working on building a module for SwordSearcher that you might want to share, please be mindful of copyright. You should only share modules that contain public domain material, or material for which you have obtained permission to share.

Here is a helpful chart that you can use to determine the public domain status of a work:

https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain

It is updated annually.

I have attached the PDF of the chart as of Jan 2016 Jan 2019 in case the web site is unreachable.

 

[Eric]

That's a good resource, Brandon. Thanks. It's a shame it's so complicated, but at least if one has to find out, he can at try to work his way through that chart.

 

[S. Carpenter]

Thank you for being specific about copyright. I would love to share what I have copied for my own personal use, but I KNOW it is copyrighted. I have access to it through a website that did not author it. So the website must have some agreement with the author of the Study Bible I use.

My question: Should I contact the AUTHOR or the WEBSITE from which I gained access to this work?

 

[Brandon Staggs]

My question: Should I contact the AUTHOR or the WEBSITE from which I gained access to this work?

That would depend on who has the right to grant permissions. It's complicated, an no general rule can be applied.

 

[Brandon Staggs]

I've updated the top post to include a PDF of US copyright term details as of Jan 2019.

 

[S. Carpenter]

If you are working on building a module for SwordSearcher that you might want to share, please be mindful of copyright. You should only share modules that contain public domain material, or material for which you have obtained permission to share.

Here is a helpful chart that you can use to determine the public domain status of a work:

https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain

It is updated annually.

I have attached the PDF of the chart as of Jan 2016 Jan 2019 in case the web site is unreachable.

Thank you very much for this! Since I had questions before concerning copyright, this helps us who wish to do this legally find documents that are already in the public domain and thereby keep the law. Much appreciated! (Especially since it looks like you even update it for us so all the year citations are correct for the year we are in!)