How To Research Copyrights

One of the most commonly asked questions in our self-publishing seminars is: "How can I research material and find out if it has an active copyright?"

We have recently uncovered the following information plus some great government sponsored websites that have the most comprehensive research information we've found

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/

The Catalog of Copyright Entries, published by the US Copyright Office, contains a list of all copyright registrations received. This information can be used to

• See whether a copyright has been registered or renewed. This can be useful for determining whether a work published after 1922 is now in the public domain.
• For instance, copyrights for works first published before 1964, and first published in the US, that were not registered and renewed in a timely manner, have now expired into the public domain. (Some material that was first published abroad may be exempt from renewal requirements.)
• To learn more about how to investigate the copyright renewal status of a book, see http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/renewals.html
• Find out who registered a copyright, and what the copyright covers. This can be useful if you want to contact a copyright owner to ask permission to put an old work online.

This page includes pointers to electronic copies of copyright registrations. We're particularly interested in renewal registrations to help find public domain works, but we also collect original registrations. We'd like to get help from the community in putting this material online, and in doing useful analyses of it.