[WikiEN-l] Copyright question - illegal publications

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 5/10/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> While there is an author and the "heirs and assigns"  (a debtor for
> example) of an organization which may have legal claims there is
> miniscule chance that any of them would come forth. I know of no
> clause which excludes illegal publications from copyright protection.
> If the article has substantial historical importance it would fall
> under fair use.
>
> Fred
>
My thought was that the copyright in the US might have elapsed due to
publication without a copyright notice.  But that's dependent on the
status in the country of first publication, unless the work was
published in the US within 30 days of that.

OTOH, it would be tempting to use the strategy of "just do it and see
if anyone complains", especially as this work seems to be the type
that would stand alone and not taint other parts of the corpus.

Anthony