Possible copyright issue.

[999tigger]

Could anyone help me out please with, maybe, a copyright problem?

I am a member of our towns History and Memories facebook page. Every now and again someone puts on a poem about our local town that was written by a lifelong resident. This resident wrote 35 poems about our town and put them in a book and sold them in aid of a local learning disabilities charity. All the books were only photocopied and stapled together using volunteer labour and donated materials, every penny went to the charity. Only about one hundred were made and there as not been any available for a few years. No copyright or other information is printed in the book, other than the authors name.

There is quite a bit of renewed interest in the poems and I was wondering if there would be any issues with reprinting the book (legally) and, again, donating the money to the same charity.

The author passed away several years ago, he was divorced and i can't find any family.

PLEASE NOTE, if this is a potential minefield then i'll forget it, i am not trying to personally profit from any of his work, just trying to get my friend remembered again via his work.

 

Thank You

 

I think its worth pursuing, but will hunt you some contact numbers out later. Although the copyright is his I would have said he gave you a licence to print the poems especially as they were for charity. You can try tracing the relative through asking on facebook or maybe the local church, shop , neighbours or village community centre? Someone will have known him. id be highly surprised if the person who has inherited wont let you print them off again. Dont be deterred.

 

---------- Post added 05-04-2017 at 22:44 ----------

 

That assumes there was a will in the first place and that will makes any provisions for their poems.

If they were divorced without kids, there might not be any will at all.

 

Personally I can't see who'd care enough to sue, unless the person was a well published poet.

 

Quite. he went to the trouble of proviing them for charity. Its a shame someone from the time isnt around.

[TORONTONY]

That assumes there was a will in the first place and that will makes any provisions for their poems.

If they were divorced without kids, there might not be any will at all.

 

Personally I can't see who'd care enough to sue, unless the person was a well published poet.

 

Exactly, only the copyright owner or his licensee can instigate court proceedings. As there appears to be no licensee, unless, there is a registration, there should be no problems. As for the posters who mentioned that copyright automatically belongs to the author, of course you are correct. However try proving that in court if the work is not registered. There is a cheaper way i.e. mail the work to yourself, on completion and do not open the envelope/ package, but that is rarely done by professionals and is not exactly fool proof.

[biotechpete]

OP do you have a copy of the original published book of poems? I would assume that there is no copyright statement on it?

 

I wonder, although I don't know for sure, that by placing the work in the public domain, without a copyright statement, that you could claim it was done so with no conditions 'license'.

[BentheBoffin]

OP do you have a copy of the original published book of poems? I would assume that there is no copyright statement on it?

 

I wonder, although I don't know for sure, that by placing the work in the public domain, without a copyright statement, that you could claim it was done so with no conditions 'license'.

 

 

Thank you all for your replies, they are very helpful. I do have a copy of the original and the only statement, other than the poems, is a message thanking the people who donated their time and materials, there is no copyright or publishers statement.

 

Although there is a potential problem many of your thoughts echo mine and i think the risk maybe worth taking. I will spend a bit more time trying to trace any family before making the final decision.