Legal Question in Legal Ethics in Massachusetts
publishing a book
I would like to write a book and put into it letters from 1918 that were published in a newspaper in 1918, are there any copyright laws or anything that is illegal with this. can I use the name of the soldier?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: publishing a book
Subject to a review of the source materials you propose to use, it would appear that there is little risk of a problem with the use of pre-1918 material. First, all pre-1923 material (not subsequently revised) is now in the public domain and not subject to copyright protection. Even were this not to be the case, the use of these letters for illustrative purposes would likely be deemed a fair use that would not constitute infringement.
As to the use of actual names of authors who are almost certainly dead (3 US WWI survivors are left), if they were used in the 1918 publication, I can't imagine the authors' heirs being able to raise any objection to republication now (although I think it would be courteous to reach out to findable family members prior to publication).
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