Stanford University recently made available a searchable Copyright Renewal Database. This certainly seems like it could be a useful tool.
Here’s what Greg Newby (Project Gutenberg CEO) said about it;
“The front page mentioned they use PG’s content. It sounds like this is the further-developed version of Michael Lesk’s stuff at Rutgers, which we point to from http://copy.pglaf.org/
This looks pretty functional, to me. I tried a couple of simple searches, and came up with correct results.”
Here is the front page blurb of the Stanford website;
This database makes searchable the copyright renewal records received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1993 for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963. Note that the database includes ONLY US Class A (book) renewals.
The period from 1923-1963 is of special interest for US copyrights, as works published after January 1, 1964 had their copyrights automatically renewed by the 1976 Copyright Act, and works published before 1923 have generally fallen into the public domain. Between those dates, a renewal registration was required to prevent the expiration of copyright, however determining whether a work’s registration has been renewed is a challenge. Renewals received by the Copyright Office after 1977 are searchable in an online database, but renewals received between 1950 and 1977 were announced and distributed only in a semi-annual print publication. The Copyright Office does not have a machine-searchable source for this renewal information, and the only public access is through the card catalog in their DC offices.
In order to make these renewal records more accessible, Stanford has created this searchable database. Building on the work done by Project Gutenberg to transcribe the 1950-1977 renewals, and on early conversion efforts by Michael Lesk, we have converted the published renewal announcements to machine-readable form, and combined them with the renewals for later years made available on the Copyright Office’s website. Note that this database covers only renewals, not original registrations, and is limited to books (Class A registrations) published in the US.
To access the service and read more information please visit;
Stanford University Copyright Renewal Database