Talk:The State (Bourne)

I am unsure about the 1923 tag on this page, as the work appears to be published in 1946:. It is probably still PD, as I cant find a renewal record for it, which would mean PD-US-no-renewal is applicable. Was it published earlier? John Vandenberg 05:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Don't works that are not copyrighted by their author from the first half of the 20th century (somewhere before 1970, I think) go into the public domain? Either way, I checked my copy of Voices of a People's History by Howard Zinn, and he does not mention it in the Credits and Permissions section (where every copyrighted work in the book gets a source cited for it). Thus, I think it's safe to say there's no copyright on it anymore. -- LGagnon 17:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and no, Bourne didn't get to publish it earlier, as he died before anyone could even find out he wrote it. The State was published posthumously, which is why I assume it couldn't be copyrighted. -- LGagnon 17:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding; I didnt realise he died in 1918, making this an unpublished work. The laws differ per country for unpublished (e.g. in Australia, unpublished means infinite copyright protection until the estate of the person chooses to publish it), and honestly I cant recall what special protection unpublished had in the U.S. at that time, in any.  We do have an unused PD-US-unpublished template, but I doubt it applies here as his works were published eventually, presumably with the permission of the estate/copyright holder.
 * Maybe it was published in Untimely Papers, 1919? That would mean that the PD-1923 tag is correct.
 * btw, I found a renewal notice in when searching for "Randolph Bourne", but that notice appears to be only for the new material added to a later edition. John Vandenberg 22:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I checked Zinn's book again. It was discovered right after he died, and Zinn refers to it as "unpublished" (though that's a given, since it's posthumous). I'll add the template for that. -- LGagnon 04:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry to be a bother about this, but as I said above, I doubt that the PD-US-unpublished tag as this work doesnt meet the text of that tag "it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before 01 January 2003".
 * The legal copyright holder at the time of his death will be his estate, and
 * it was subsequently published, either in 1919 (as part of Untimely_Papers) or later in 1946.
 * In order to work out whether it was in Untimely Papers, I uploaded Untimely Papers: here is the table of contents. The text on this article doesnt match "Unfinished fragment on the state" completely; it starts with "Government on the other hand is synonymous with neither State nor Nation", whereas our copy has seven paragraphs before this.  The ending is also different, ending with "punishing those citizens whom society agrees are offensive, and collecting money to pay for all . . ." which is the end of the prior paragraph. John Vandenberg 05:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)