Stanford Launches Copyright Renewal Database

-- Library Journal, 05/02/2007

The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) has launched the "Determinator" Copyright Renewal Database, an online resource to enable users to search copyright-renewal records for books published in the United States between 1923 and 1963, after which copyrights were automatically renewed by the 1976 Copyright Act.

Determining the renewal status of works published between those dates has been a significant challenge, especially for renewals received between 1950 and 1977. The latter were distributed only in a semiannual print publication; Stanford has now digitized and combined them with those records received by the Copyright Office after 1977, which are available in electronic form, to create a single searchable database. Renewals for works published before 1923 are not a concern since those works are now in the public domain. SULAIR developed the database with a grant from the Hewlett Foundation, building upon Project Gutenberg's transcriptions of the Catalog of Copyright Entries.