No problem W&S,
First off, if it's before 1923, it's in the public domain. You probably already knew that.
After 1923, I use the following charts to determine if the copyright expired, needed to be renewed, or is still in effect:
http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm
I like both of those websites because the first one is more in-depth and specific, if I need it, but the second one is easier to look at and quickly determine how long the copyright protection extends/extended.
Basically, most books between 1923 and 1977 had to have 1)correct copyright notice (which I take to mean it had to have the little (c) symbol in the copyright statment), and/or 2)had their copyright renewed, or they fall into public domain. (There are more specific details to time periods and when things became public-- you can read about them on the above two sites if you're interested.)
In order to determine if a book's copyright was renewed, there are a couple of places to check:
http://www.incopyright.org/?r=%22A+Bran ... ly+Tree%22 (lists copyright renewals from 1923-1963)
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebre ... PAGE=First (lists all books published or renewed from 1978-present)
So, if I find the copyright in one of those two, I either know it's copyrighted or know what to do with it.
If the required renewal date for the copyright falls between 1963 and 1978 that's a problem, because those dates aren't available to be searched online. They can only be searched at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. in person. (LAME!!!!) So, my company has a contact in Washington D.C. who is willing to search copyright status for us on books that are copyrighted between those years, for a much cheaper fee than the LOC would charge to search them. So, as I check, I compile a list of books that we are interested in, but whose copyright status falls between those years and is unclear. When the list gets long enough, we'll send it off to our contact to get the books checked.
There's also the whole headache of copyrights on international books, but it's pretty rare for us to be using those. For the few I've come across, the best basic resource I've found is this website:
http://www.copyright-watch.org/home
I think that covers everything. Hopefully that answers your question, W&S. It's an annoyingly complicated process, so I have a whole spreadsheet set up to help me keep track of original copyright dates, required renewal dates, current copyright status, etc. It's actually kind of fun to figure out the whole tricky business, but it's stressful, too because I don't want to accidentally mark something as good and have someone sue the company because I misread a copyright rule or miscalculated the public domain date. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet (crossing my fingers)!
