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List:       wikipedia-l
Subject:    Re: [Wikipedia-l] Dream a little...
From:       Ray Saintonge <saintonge () telus ! net>
Date:       2006-10-21 16:32:20
Message-ID: 453A4B94.70400 () telus ! net
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George Herbert wrote:

>This may not be all that hard, in many cases.
>
>My late Grandfather wrote a reasonably widely used introductory general
>science college textbook in the 1950s, with several editions through the
>late 50s.  There's probably no likelyhood that it could be republished now,
>and even if it could be I think all involved would react positively to
>CC-something licensing it, perhaps just outright donating it.
>
>There had been some talk about this after my grandmother passed away a few
>years ago, but nobody acted on it.
>
Assuming that your grandfather's rights passed on to her when he died, 
how did she deal with it in her will?  If she didn't say anything, how 
was the residue of her estate distributed?  If she was intestate, how 
many children shared in the copyrights?  These are the kind of questions 
that need to be addressed to determine who can choose what to do with 
the rights.  If the (more than one) children inherited equally any one 
can grant the GFDL licence. 

If your grandfather lived in the United States, and the copyright was 
not renewed, the work is already in the public domain.

>I bet that there would be a huge net benefit to starting up and organising a
>donations campaign for such a trust.  A website, some volunteers, a
>consistent donations policy, and a little legwork to get some PR out in the
>scientific press would go a long way.
>
I doubt it. More often then not grandchildren have no idea that 
grandfather once published a book unless there was a ton of unsold 
copies cluttering up the basement.

Ec

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