Author talk:Ayn Rand

About Anthem
I think Ayn Rand's Anthem is her only work of fiction that is in the public domain. Though some of her speeches and essays are also available online, that does not make them free to copy, of course. As the | Wikipedia article on Anthem states:
 * "Anthem entered the public domain in the United States at the end of 1966, due to the failure to renew its copyright after 28 years as then required by US law. The book's copyright status in other countries is dependent on their adoption and interpretation of the rule of the shorter term for this title; however, under the usual life plus 50 years rules of the Berne Convention, its copyright would remain in effect until 2033."

I do not know whether Wikimedia, whose servers are in the U.S., limits its compliance to U.S. rules only, but that is my impression, so please correct me if I am wrong. Assuming that Wikisource and any other U.S. person is free to publish Anthem in the U.S., this should not be hard to accomplish as the complete text is available in several places and forms on the Web. I think the best place to start is the Objectivism Reference Center, which has three versions of the novella, (1) an annotated verson with preface and notes by by Richard Lawrence, which is protected by copyright, (2) an HTML version, which may or may not be protected (consult your legal advisor), and (3) a plain text version which ought to be freely usable but would need to be re-edited in order to restore some meaningful formatting in the original, specifically a few italicized lines. One or two other plain text versions are available at the Gutenberg Project.

I would welcome any corrections or additions to these notes.--Blanchette 04:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, the list of works on Author:Ayn Rand contains many that are not public domain. As a result it may be wise to remove them from the list.
 * wrt to Anthem, Wikisource is able to redistribute this work, because it is in the Public domain in the US. However as I am in Australia, I may not be able to copy it and redistribute it.  Our copy of Anthem has so far come from Project Gutenberg.  John Vandenberg 05:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

We the Living came first
the excerpt from wikipedia states "Anthem was Ayn Rand's first novel, written in 1937." We the living was published in 1936. It came first. is this just an outdated excerpt that no one ever fixed? —unsigned comment by 75.65.124.18 (talk).


 * It was probably an outdated excerpt; thank you for pointing it out. I have updated the description of Anthem. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)