Copyrights....

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Athanasius

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I have a question about copyrights….

I have a few friends who have Live Journals. Sometimes in the past when they had been bored, they invited others to spam their LJ with a lot of meaningless comments. (Don’t ask me why…). Anyway, a few times when they did so, I decided what better way to spam them than with quotes from G.K. Chesterton!

So on three different occasions I made about one to two hundred comments each on an entry of theirs, simply including a quote from Chesterton in each comment (followed by the line “GKC” indicating who the author was) and leaving it in their LiveJournals. The quotes were anywhere from a single line to occasionally two to three paragraphs long, selected from all over Chesterton’s writings. Here’s an example of one time I did it:

173 Chesterton quotes

Though on a few quotes which were from Chesterton’s fiction, and included a lot dialogue, they were obviously longer than three paragraphs, since in those cases some of the “paragraphs” of the dialogue were one line long or so, such as here:

Example

As you can see, I didn’t bother to even state where in Chesterton’s work the quotes came from.

But now I’m worried I might have been violating some copyright law or something. At the time I thought it would be all right, since many of the quotes were from works of his in the public domain, and the others that might be copyrighted I figured would be covered by “fair use” provisions.

So am I all right? Or did I do something wrong that I need to fix? (On the one hand I think I might simply be being scrupulous, but I’m not sure…)

Thanks.
 
You’re fine.

As long long as you are not making money or preventing the copyright holder from making money then you have practically no chance to violate any copyright law.
 
Some, maybe a lot, maybe all, of Chesterton’s work is in the public domain. Project Gutenberg has a number of his works on the web for free, and if I remember aright, they only deal with public domain stuff.

DaveBj
 
Violation of copyright law has nothing to do with whether or not you are making any money. If you read the copyright notice on any work you will see that it says “any unauthorized duplication” is a violation of the law. Generally, they will simply ask you to remove it. Also note that any work, even those that have not been registered with the Copyright office, are copyrighted at the time of their creation - in other words, registration is not necessary. Registration is necessary if you want to file suit against a violater. The length of copyright depends on when the work was created. Details, as well as a database of registered copyrighted works, is available at www.copyright.org.
 
Sir Knight:
Congressional Fair Use Act should have you covered.
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Absolutely correct. First of all, copyrights expire – and most if not all of Chesterton’s writings are in the public domain (as already noted by another poster.)

Secondly, you have a right to quote anyone, copyright or not, when reviewing their work, criticizing their ideas, or in general discussion.

In courtesy, you ought to attribute such quotes – as the OP did.
 
Thanks for the help! I don’t know much about copyright law, so I just wanted to make sure that"fair use" would cover it…(since I only provided the quotes themselves, many a single line in length, with some up to a paragraph or two, or even a bit more if it included dialogue, such as in his fiction, including among the copyrighted stuff). I had no commentary or anything else, not even where in Chesterton’s work to find them)

I attributed the quotes to simply “GKC” on most of them, (though I forgot to attribute it on a few of the quotes). Basically, the people I was commenting to knew who I meant by “GKC”.

From what I understand, all of Chesterton’s work before 1923 is in the public domain, but afterwards it would not be.

But if “fair use” applies, then I guess I should be all right even for the stuff after 1923.

No offense, but I think you need a new hobby.

😃 Well, on the few occasions I did it, I was bored. I already had the quotes ready, (since I had compiled a list of Chesterton quotations: they are very useful), so when my friends invited spamming (like I said, don’t ask me why they did; I have no idea), I knew what would be a good way to spam. 🙂
 
Also, in the book “Platitudes Undone” (which is copyrighted), there are 161 “platitudes in the making” by Holbrook Jackson with Chesterton’s responses. I quoted nine of those platitudes with Chesterton responses in my spamming. (They aren’t that long in length; many of the platitudes and responses combined are only two lines in the length, though some of them are a little longer). From what I understand, fair use would cover that as well, right? In other words, I didn’t quote too many of them, I hope.
 
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koda:
Violation of copyright law has nothing to do with whether or not you are making any money. If you read the copyright notice on any work you will see that it says “any unauthorized duplication” is a violation of the law. Generally, they will simply ask you to remove it. Also note that any work, even those that have not been registered with the Copyright office, are copyrighted at the time of their creation - in other words, registration is not necessary. Registration is necessary if you want to file suit against a violater. The length of copyright depends on when the work was created. Details, as well as a database of registered copyrighted works, is available at www.copyright.org.
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If the publisher has written something in the book about its copyright, make sure you read it carefully, not necessarily to follow it, for it may be wrong. When I worked in a library I made calls to several publishers in the late 1990’s, because they claimed rights that didn’t exist. The books stated that no copying was allowed, and that was wrong.
 
17 U.S.C. § 107 outlines criteria including four specific factors that courts weigh to determine if what you’ve done would lawfully be considered Fair Use. See especially, 17 U.S.C. § 108 and § 110. If your use isn’t covered (be sure to also look through other user exceptions from § 109 - § 122), you’ll want to look at Fair Use, the slipperiest defense in copyright law, § 107.
 
😃 for future reference (since it doesn’t really matter in this instance since public domain takes care of the issue) ALL of the conditions set out for “fair use” must be true for it to be “fair use” - a lot of people don’t realize that =) (I’m sick and on cough medicine or I would sit here and think about whether it would apply in this case anyway…maybe I will later if I feel better (and not loopy from the cough medicine =)

oh - and also just to share - 1923 is the date to remember about public domain - if you find anything published before 1923 you can be assured of it being in the public domain in the united states (there are a few things from later than that date that actually are as well - but 1923 is the big cut off date - if its from before - its definately public domain - of course this doesn’t stop publishers from occasionally copyrighting their later reprint - but all that means is you need to actually copy from a printing that was prior to 1923 instead of the new modern printing =)

and thats it for your lovely public service announcement from your “local” (virtually) librarian 😃
 
BTW, I just had a quick question I forgot to ask, just to make sure I‘m not being scrupulous… Earlier in this thread, I wrote:
The quotes were anywhere from a single line to occasionally two to three paragraphs long, selected from all over Chesterton’s writings
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Now, the overwhelming majority of the quotes I had were either a single line, or perhaps a few lines. But there were a few which were longer. To give the two longest quotes, I believe:
"…I will repeat somewhat hurriedly what the lady in question cried; for the reader knows it already by heart. The message of Christ was perfectly “simple”: that the cure of everything is Love; but since He was killed (I do not quite know why) for making this remark, great temples have been put up to Him and horrid people called priests have given the world nothing but “stones, amulets, formulas, shibboleths.” They also “quarrel eternally among themselves as to the placing of a button or the bending of a knee.” All this gives no comfort to the unhappy Christian, who apparently wishes to be comforted only by being told that he has a duty to his neighbour…
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But I touch rapidly and reluctantly on these examples, because they exemplify a much wider question of this interminable way of talking. It consists of talking as if the moral problem of man were perfectly simple, as everyone knows it is not; and then depreciating attempts to solve it by quoting long technical words, and talking about senseless ceremonies without enquiring about their sense. In other words, it is exactly as if somebody were to say about the science of medicine: “All I ask is Health; what could be simpler than the beautiful gift of Health? Why not be content to enjoy for ever the glow of youth and the fresh enjoyment of being fit? Why study dry and dismal sciences of anatomy and physiology; why enquire about the whereabouts of obscure organs of the human body? Why pedantically distinguish between what is labelled a poison and what is labelled an antidote, when it is so simple to enjoy Health? Why worry with a minute exactitude about the number of drops of laudanum or the strength of a dose of chloral, when it is so nice to be healthy? Away with your priestly apparatus of stethoscopes and clinical thermometers; with your ritualistic mummery of feeling pulses, putting out tongues, examining teeth, and the rest! The god Esculapius came on earth solely to inform us that Life is on the whole preferable to Death; and this thought will console many dying persons unattended by doctors.”
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In other words, the Usual Article, which is now some ten thousand issues old, was always stuff and nonsense even when it was new. There may be, and there has been, pedantry in the medical profession. There may be, and there has been, theology that was thin or dry or without consolation for men. But to talk as if it were possible for any science to attack any problem, without developing a technical language, and a method always methodical and often minute, merely means that you are a fool and have never really attacked a problem at all. Quite apart from the theory of a Church, if Christ had remained on earth for an indefinite time, trying to induce men to love one another, He would have found it necessary to have some tests, some methods, some way of dividing true love from false love, some way of distinguishing between tendencies that would ruin love and tendencies that would restore it. You cannot make a success of anything, even loving, entirely without thinking. All this is so obvious that it would seem unnecessary to repeat it; and yet it is necessary to repeat it, because it is the flat contradiction of it that is now incessantly repeated. Its flatness stretches around us like a vast wilderness on every side."
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This quote was taken from an essay of Chesterton‘s published in The Thing (1929) (about 1/3 of the essay in which it appeared)
 
The other quote was
“Those who maintain that Christianity was not a Church but a moral movement of idealists have been forced to push the period of its perversion or disappearance further and further back. A bishop of Rome writes claiming authority in the very lifetime of St. John the Evangelist; and it is described as the first papal aggression. A friend of the Apostles writes of them as men he knew and says they taught him the doctrine of the Sacrament; and Mr. Wells can only murmur that the reaction towards barbaric blood-rites may have happened rather earlier than might be expected. The date of the Fourth Gospel, which at one time was steadily growing later and later, is now steadily growing earlier and earlier; until critics are staggered at the dawning and dreadful possibility that it might be something like what it professes to be. The last limit of an early date for the extinction of true Christianity has probably been found by the latest German professor whose authority is invoked by Dean Inge. This learned scholar says that Pentecost was the occasion for the first founding of an ecclesiastical, dogmatic, and despotic Church utterly alien to the simple ideals of Jesus of Nazareth. This may be called, in a popular as well as a 'learned sense, the limit. What do professors of this kind imagine that men are made of? Suppose it were a matter of any merely human movement, let us say that of the conscientious objectors. Some say the early Christians were Pacifists; I do not believe it for a moment, but I am quite ready to accept the parallel for the sake of the argument. Tolstoy or some great preacher of peace among peasants has been shot as a mutineer for defying conscription; and a little while afterwards his few followers meet together in an upper room in remembrance of him. They never had any reason for coming together except that common memory; they are men of many kinds with nothing to bind them, except that the greatest event in all their lives was this tragedy of the teacher of universal peace. They are always repeating his words, revolving his problems, trying to imitate his character. The Pacifists meet at their Pentecost and are possessed of a sudden ecstasy of enthusiasm and wild rush of the whirlwind of inspiration, in a course of which they proceed to establish universal Conscription, to increase the Navy Estimates, to insist on everybody going about armed to the teeth and on all the frontiers bristling with artillery; the proceedings concluded with the singing of ‘Boys of the Bulldog Breed’ and ‘Don’t let them scrap the British Navy! That is something like a fair parallel to the theory of these critics; that the transition from their idea of Jesus to their idea of Catholicism could have been made in the little upper room at Pentecost. Surely anybody’s common sense would tell him that enthusiasts, who only met through their common enthusiasm for a leader whom they loved, would not instantly rush away to establish everything that he hated. No, if the I ecclesiastical and dogmatic system’ is as old as Pentecost it is as old as Christmas. If we trace it back to such very early Christians we must trace it back to Christ”
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This quote was taken from the book The Everlasting Man (1925)

As I said, those were my two longest quotes, a couple of the few exceptions to the rule. Most of them were much shorter, many only a single line or two, as you can see from the above links. There were also some quotes from St. Thomas Aquinas that may have been a paragraph long each. And, like I said, all of the quotes I simply attributed to GKC, since my friends know who I mean by GKC (I also did not indicate from which works of Chesterton, they were).

Was that all right? Would fair use cover those quotes? (I really would not have to worry about deleting the quotes if I don’t have to)

Speaking of which, does anyone know if The Everlasting Man (1925), The Thing (1929), and St. Thomas Aquinas (1932) are in the public domain themselves, and so I wouldn‘t even have to worry about fair use? On the one hand, they were all written after 1923. On the other hand, Dave Armstrong links to online versions of all three works on his Chesterton webpage. For that reason, at the time I was making these quotes, I simply assumed those works were in the public domain. So does anyone know? Thanks.
 
This quote was taken from an essay of Chesterton‘s published in The Thing (1929) (about 1/3 of the essay in which it appeared)
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BTW, if I remember correctly, The Thing was a book composed of essays which Chesterton had previously written for the newspapers shortly beforehand, which were then published in book form, right?

Anyway, I think it is a very good book.
 
Does anyone know the answers to the questions in the last couple of posts? Thanks.
 
I don’t know the answers to your questions for sure, but I wouldn’t bother about it if I were you.
People are always quoting Chesterton, an excellent thing to do, without worrying about it beyond an attribution.
I doubt that anyone will be suing you.
 
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