Robert E. Howard online

[thegreyelf]

Free and legal at the Australian Gutenberg Project:

gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#letterH

You'll need to scroll down a bit. Enjoy.

For the record, according to current U.S. copyright laws, Howard's work went into public domain in 2006 (life of author + 70 years). Not sure about international laws, but in Australia it seems it's also true.

[coffee]

That's absolutely awesome!

Have an exalt for bringing that to our attention.

[blissinfinite]

You got me totally jazzed about the public domain thing in the states but then a friend of mine sent me clarification.

From Wikipedia:

Paul Herman has undertaken extensive research into the copyright status of works by Robert E. Howard. Herman released a document for a Howard website called REHeapa entitled: 'THE COPYRIGHT AND OWNERSHIP STATUS OF THE WORKS AND WORDS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD' in December of 2002. This document contains a comprehensive list of Howard works in the public domain. Some of his conjectures as to what is or is not public domain have been called into question by claimants to the rights to the work and are currently being researched. Anyone using Herman's original list are advised to consult the updated versions of the document.

Here's a link to the legalese:
www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4rerevised.html

Thanks for the Australian link, though!

[thegreyelf]

Interesting. They are attempting to exploit a loophole in the law to their greedy benefit. Gotta love legalese.

See, the text of the U.S. Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 is pretty clear: Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship. The Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.

They appear to be claiming that, since Howard never properly copyrighted his works, they fall into "corporate authorship," i.e. authored by the original publishers. I wouldn't think this can stand up in court as his works are very clearly attributed to individual authorship, which leaves the works at "life of the author plus 70 years," or 2006.

[EDIT]In any case, that list alone includes 12 of his Conan works, a goodly number.

[greentongue]

Even more reason to want an eInk reader.
If only time was as abundant as the reading list.
=

[thegreyelf]

Here's all of the Conan stories in PDF format:

www.feedbooks.com/list/16

And all of the gutenberg.au Howard stories in PDF:

www.feedbooks.com/search?query=Robert+Ervin+Howard