Haist

[Paul Verizzo]

Most of us here know of Grant Haist's "Modern Photographic Processing." The bible of photochemistry, published in 1979. There was a followup volume 2.


Some years ago I got a copy of Volume 1 via interlibrary loan. I scanned most of it and it has been an invaluable reference as I continue to dive into the photochemistry rabbit hole.


However, there is the matter of copyright if I wish to make this resource available to you and others. I have a book from the 1930's that I would like to make available to others....OK, maybe make some money....so, I've done copyright investigating over the last years.


WARNING: I am not a copyright attorney, nor do I play one on TV.


But here is what I understand the law to be. First of all, it's a morass of conflict and illogical thinking. The quite old law was overhauled in 1976. It gave copyright protection for fifty years after the death of the author.


A huge issue ever since then is the matter of "orphan books." Books that are no longer published but are still copyright protected. Like Haist. There have been a number of bills in Congress to rectify this issue, but none have passed. If someone re-prints an orphan book and the author finds out, he/she could win big awards. Most of the case law involving reprinting have the matter of profit involved. What if there was no profit? Just distribution of information? And what if they don't find out?


There are a few copies of both Volume 1 and Volume 2 (be still my beating heart!) on Amazon. Weirdly, the publisher is not the same as the original one.


So, I'm asking this APUG....'scuse me, Photrio.....community what your thoughts are about me making available Volume 1 via PDF download.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

PDF copies of both volumes of Haist's Modern Photographic Processing were available online when I checked not long ago. Whether it's legit to download and distribute them, I've not much of an idea.

[Edit: Vol1 is available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/modernphotograph0001hais]

 

[koraks]

What if there was no profit? Just distribution of information?

It's still a violation of an established right. It might make a difference for the damages that might have to be paid, but I don't know about all that.

And what if they don't find out?

Evidently nothing. If nobody complains about it, that's the end of it, isn't it?

Books that are no longer published but are still copyright protected. Like Haist. There have been a number of bills in Congress to rectify this issue

I think there's a rather fundamental difference in views underlying this seemingly simple statement. One side might opine that a work that has been published should continue to be available to society, for the 'greater good' so to say. In that case, there would be an 'issue' that would have to be 'rectified' in the case of orphaned books. The other side might argue that copyright exists independent of the question how or if that right is exercised by its holder - if a work remains available or not to the general public would not be a concern in terms of the copyright itself and its enforcement. I believe the latter view is the legal reality as it is now, regardless of the question if it's considered 'fair' (justice and fairness evidently not always align).

 

[alanrockwood]

According to this link: https://library.dts.edu/Pages/RM/Helps/copyright.shtml, a work copyrighted between 1925 and 1963 must be renewed after 28 years or it reverts to the public domain. There is a database where you can look up old copyright renewals at https://exhibits.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals.

What is the name of the author and copyright date of the old work you are thinking about?

Just for fun, I assumed that there was a first Haist book copyrighted in 1930, and then I looked up renewals made in 1957, 1958, and 1959. There was no one named Haist that renewed a copyright in any of those years. This is just a hypothetical example of how you could approach this.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Most of us here know of Grant Haist's "Modern Photographic Processing." The bible of photochemistry, published in 1979. There was a followup volume 2.


Some years ago I got a copy of Volume 1 via interlibrary loan. I scanned most of it and it has been an invaluable reference as I continue to dive into the photochemistry rabbit hole.


However, there is the matter of copyright if I wish to make this resource available to you and others. I have a book from the 1930's that I would like to make available to others....OK, maybe make some money....so, I've done copyright investigating over the last years.


WARNING: I am not a copyright attorney, nor do I play one on TV.


But here is what I understand the law to be. First of all, it's a morass of conflict and illogical thinking. The quite old law was overhauled in 1976. It gave copyright protection for fifty years after the death of the author.


A huge issue ever since then is the matter of "orphan books." Books that are no longer published but are still copyright protected. Like Haist. There have been a number of bills in Congress to rectify this issue, but none have passed. If someone re-prints an orphan book and the author finds out, he/she could win big awards. Most of the case law involving reprinting have the matter of profit involved. What if there was no profit? Just distribution of information? And what if they don't find out?


There are a few copies of both Volume 1 and Volume 2 (be still my beating heart!) on Amazon. Weirdly, the publisher is not the same as the original one.


So, I'm asking this APUG....'scuse me, Photrio.....community what your thoughts are about me making available Volume 1 via PDF download.

it's a clear violation of copyright in my eyes.

 

[Don_ih]

See here for what seems to be a collection of Haist's own original photos (over 10000 of them), lab journals, and even awards - for the low (relatively) price of 45000..... Also includes letters to and from his wife during WWII.

 

[AgX]

Whether it's legit to download and distribute them, I've not much of an idea.

It belongs to that huge number of books at the Internet Archive that cannot even be looked at without being a member of their own virtual library (membership though is free, but access to copies restricted as in a real library).

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

It belongs to that huge number of books at the Internet Archive that cannot even be looked at without being a member of their own virtual library (membership though is free, but access to copies restricted as in a real library).

There are pdf copies available elsewhere but they might not be legit to download and distribute.

 

[AgX]

I have not yet found such directly accessible.

 

[gone]

Go for it. Copyright laws are primarily designed to keep other people from stealing your ideas. Written copyright laws are the same, but I can't see a problem w/ what you're doing (although I would at least make a through search to see if the copyright holders are still around).

The key issue is money, and you wouldn't be profiting from your scheme.

It wasn't that long ago that libraries were having hissy fits over this because they misunderstood the laws. They would try and keep people from copying text and photos from books at the library unless they said it was purely for personal usage. When I went to copy stores, they wanted to know if I took the picture that I wanted copied. Now no one gives a hoot, people are scanning and copying things like mad in libraries, UPS Stores, FedEx stores, etc.

 

[koraks]

The key issue is money, and you wouldn't be profiting from your scheme.

Yeah, but releasing the content to the public domain could prevent others (i.e. the copyright holders) to make money from it. It's not the money OP would make, it's the potential damages incurred by others.

 

[MattKing]

There are a lot of opinions in this thread about copyright law, but as far as I can tell there is only one copyright lawyer who posts on this site, and he hasn't identified himself publicly as such. He also hasn't posted on this thread.
I'm reasonably confident though that, as a published author, Ralph Lambrecht has a decent knowledge about copyright protection of his work.
Here in Canada, advocating a breach of rights like copyright is grounds to be sued for damages. I expect that something similar applies in your jurisdiction.
And those claims could come from anyone who might have been assigned copyright, and that assignment could come from an executor of an estate - there is no practical way of knowing who might be entitled to enforce copyright, outside of finding evidence that someone has been suing to enforce it.
It is fine to ask about what people know about copyright law, or for advice about how to find out for yourself. But asking about how someone can get away with breaching copyright and not suffer any consequences - we don't want that on Photrio.
Finally, do you really want to do that with an important part of the life work of someone like Grant Haist, who is only gone for seven years!
Grant Haist in Memoriam on Photrio - 2015
I'm closing this thread.