[Proposed production] Short Fiction by Daphne Du Maurier

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Lukas Bystricky

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Sep 30, 2025, 12:53:33 PMSep 30
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I'd like to start a short story compilation of Du Maurier stories (see spreadsheet). I've found scans for most of her early stories and they're not too long so it shouldn't be too much trouble to transcribe.

Here's the GitHub repo.

I have a basic question about copyright. As I understand it, copyright expires 95 years after publication. I know for books we only consider the year the book was published, which makes sense because the copyright is usually only given as a year. So until January 1st we can only work on books published before 1930, regardless of when during the year 1930 they first came out. Does the same rule apply to magazines, where we have a more exact publication date? For example Du Maurier has a few stories published in early 1930–more than 95 years ago. Could I include those already? I'm guessing the answer is no, but just thought I'd check. 

Alex Cabal

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Sep 30, 2025, 1:24:05 PMSep 30
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OK, Weijia will manage this with Robin reviewing.

I think technically it's OK to include work based on month, but for
consistency we should just stick with year calculations.

On 9/30/25 11:53 AM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> I'd like to start a short story compilation of Du Maurier stories (see
> spreadsheet <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
> d/1fjsN_XWap97TwESdl20QtEusFZprhPqOGA9WEot2a8o/edit?gid=0#gid=0>). I've
> found scans for most of her early stories and they're not too long so it
> shouldn't be too much trouble to transcribe.
>
> Here's the GitHub repo <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/daphne-du-
> maurier_short-fiction>.
>
> I have a basic question about copyright. As I understand it, copyright
> expires 95 years after publication. I know for books we only consider
> the year the book was published, which makes sense because the copyright
> is usually only given as a year. So until January 1st we can only work
> on books published before 1930, regardless of when during the year 1930
> they first came out. Does the same rule apply to magazines, where we
> have a more exact publication date? For example Du Maurier has a few
> stories published in early 1930–more than 95 years ago. Could I include
> those already? I'm guessing the answer is no, but just thought I'd check.
>
> --
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Weijia Cheng

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Sep 30, 2025, 9:18:15 PMSep 30
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Ok, noted.

Anthony J. Bentley

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Sep 30, 2025, 11:14:44 PMSep 30
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The month of publication doesn’t matter. These works receive their copyright from 17 U.S.C. section 304, and section 305 states:

“All terms of copyright provided by sections 302 through 304 run to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.”

Lukas Bystricky

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:21:28 PMOct 11
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An update on this. I received the book Early Stories from the library (see thread here). 

The text for "And Now to God the Father" does not exactly match partially obscured scans I found. The only changes seem to be additional paragraphs that don't appear in the scans. It's unclear if Du Maurier added these later, of if they were cut for the journal printing. In any case there is enough information to fill in the obscured text. Is it ok to do so?

The book has the following publication information (excuse the poor photo quality):
1000012662.jpeg

1000012664.jpg

Unfortunately even though it says that the stories were all written between 1927 and 1930 and gives copyright years 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930, it also gives 1954, 1955 and 1959, and it doesn't connect stories to copyright dates. I guess this makes it inadmissible as a transcription source? 


Alex Cabal

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:31:42 PMOct 11
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Well if the print edition has significant changes, and the copyright
dates are murky, I would say no, we can't use it as a source unfortunately.

On 10/11/25 12:21 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> An update on this. I received the book /Early Stories /from the library
> (see thread here <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/
> m1bbFWpehuA/m/562iqiCqAQAJ>).
>
> The text for "And Now to God the Father" does not exactly match
> partially obscured scans I found <https://archive.org/details/the-
> bystander/1920-1929/1929/
> The%20Bystander%20%231326v102%20(1929-05-15)%20(BNA)/page/368/mode/2up>.
> The only changes seem to be additional paragraphs that don't appear in
> the scans. It's unclear if Du Maurier added these later, of if they were
> cut for the journal printing. In any case there is enough information to
> fill in the obscured text. Is it ok to do so?
>
> The book has the following publication information (excuse the poor
> photo quality):
> 1000012662.jpeg
>
> 1000012664.jpg
>
> Unfortunately even though it says that the stories were all written
> between 1927 and 1930 and gives copyright years 1927, 1928, 1929 and
> 1930, it also gives 1954, 1955 and 1959, and it doesn't connect stories
> to copyright dates. I guess this makes it inadmissible as a
> transcription source?
>
>
> On Wednesday, October 1, 2025 at 5:14:44 AM UTC+2 ant...@roadrunner.page
> wrote:
>
> The month of publication doesn’t matter. These works receive their
> copyright from 17 U.S.C. section 304, and section 305 states:
>
> “All terms of copyright provided by sections 302 through 304 run to
> the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.”
>
>
> On September 30, 2025 11:23:55 AM MDT, Alex Cabal
> <al...@standardebooks.org> wrote:
>
> OK, Weijia will manage this with Robin reviewing.
>
> I think technically it's OK to include work based on month, but
> for consistency we should just stick with year calculations.
>
> On 9/30/25 11:53 AM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
>
> I'd like to start a short story compilation of Du Maurier
> stories (see spreadsheet <https://docs.google.com/
> spreadsheets/ <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/>
> d/1fjsN_XWap97TwESdl20QtEusFZprhPqOGA9WEot2a8o/edit?
> gid=0#gid=0>). I've found scans for most of her early
> stories and they're not too long so it shouldn't be too much
> trouble to transcribe.
>
> Here's the GitHub repo <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/
> daphne-du- <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/daphne-du->
> maurier_short-fiction>.
>
> I have a basic question about copyright. As I understand it,
> copyright expires 95 years after publication. I know for
> books we only consider the year the book was published,
> which makes sense because the copyright is usually only
> given as a year. So until January 1st we can only work on
> books published before 1930, regardless of when during the
> year 1930 they first came out. Does the same rule apply to
> magazines, where we have a more exact publication date? For
> example Du Maurier has a few stories published in early
> 1930–more than 95 years ago. Could I include those already?
> I'm guessing the answer is no, but just thought I'd check.
>
> --
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Lukas Bystricky

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:39:49 PMOct 11
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Not sure if it's relevant at all (I suspect not), but the changes are only additional paragraphs. So everything in the scans does appear in the book. 

Alex Cabal

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:40:48 PMOct 11
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Still, the copyright dates are unclear. Sorry.

On 10/11/25 12:39 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> Not sure if it's relevant at all (I suspect not), but the changes are
> only additional paragraphs. So everything in the scans does appear in
> the book.
>
> On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 7:31:42 PM UTC+2 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Well if the print edition has significant changes, and the copyright
> dates are murky, I would say no, we can't use it as a source
> unfortunately.
>
> On 10/11/25 12:21 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> > An update on this. I received the book /Early Stories /from the
> library
> > (see thread here <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/
> <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/>
> > m1bbFWpehuA/m/562iqiCqAQAJ>).
> >
> > The text for "And Now to God the Father" does not exactly match
> > partially obscured scans I found <https://archive.org/details/
> the- <https://archive.org/details/the->
> > bystander/1920-1929/1929/
> > The%20Bystander%20%231326v102%20(1929-05-15)%20(BNA)/page/368/
> > stories (see spreadsheet <https://docs.google.com/ <https://
> docs.google.com/>
> > spreadsheets/ <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/ <https://
> > msgid/ <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ <https://
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/>>
> > standardebooks/68263092-
> > e6a5-424c-82ea-4cf60a287a51n%40googlegroups.com
> <http://40googlegroups.com>
> > <http://40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>> <https://
> groups.google.com/d/ <https://groups.google.com/d/>
> > msgid/standardebooks/68263092- <https://groups.google.com/d/
> <https://groups.google.com/d/>
> > msgid/standardebooks/68263092->
> > e6a5-424c-82ea-4cf60a287a51n%40googlegroups.com
> <http://40googlegroups.com>
> > <http://40googlegroups.com <http://40googlegroups.com>>?
> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
> >
> >
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Lukas Bystricky

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:52:49 PMOct 11
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That's fine, that's what I suspected anyways. I've added a note to the spreadsheet. So as it now we have scans for 3 of the 4 stories that are currently PD. An additional 5 become PD on January 1st, of which I've found scans for 4 of them. Would you consider this a Public Domain Day candidate? Du Maurier is definitely a big-name author. 

Alex Cabal

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:54:12 PMOct 11
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If you want to do those then I would make this whole omnibus a PD day
book, because it's annoying to have to add stories to an existing omnibus

On 10/11/25 12:52 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> That's fine, that's what I suspected anyways. I've added a note to the
> spreadsheet. So as it now we have scans for 3 of the 4 stories that are
> currently PD. An additional 5 become PD on January 1st, of which I've
> found scans for 4 of them. Would you consider this a Public Domain Day
> candidate? Du Maurier is definitely a big-name author.
>
> On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 7:40:48 PM UTC+2 Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> Still, the copyright dates are unclear. Sorry.
>
> On 10/11/25 12:39 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> > Not sure if it's relevant at all (I suspect not), but the changes
> are
> > only additional paragraphs. So everything in the scans does
> appear in
> > the book.
> >
> > On Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 7:31:42 PM UTC+2 Alex Cabal wrote:
> >
> > Well if the print edition has significant changes, and the copyright
> > dates are murky, I would say no, we can't use it as a source
> > unfortunately.
> >
> > On 10/11/25 12:21 PM, Lukas Bystricky wrote:
> > > An update on this. I received the book /Early Stories /from the
> > library
> > > (see thread here <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/
> <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/>
> > <https://groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/ <https://
> groups.google.com/g/standardebooks/c/>>
> > > m1bbFWpehuA/m/562iqiCqAQAJ>).
> > >
> > > The text for "And Now to God the Father" does not exactly match
> > > partially obscured scans I found <https://archive.org/details/
> <https://archive.org/details/>
> > the- <https://archive.org/details/the- <https://archive.org/
> docs.google.com/> <https://
> > docs.google.com/ <http://docs.google.com/>>
> > > spreadsheets/ <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/ <https://
> docs.google.com/spreadsheets/> <https://
> > docs.google.com/spreadsheets/ <http://docs.google.com/
> spreadsheets/>>>
> > > d/1fjsN_XWap97TwESdl20QtEusFZprhPqOGA9WEot2a8o/edit?
> > > gid=0#gid=0>). I've found scans for most of her early
> > > stories and they're not too long so it shouldn't be too much
> > > trouble to transcribe.
> > >
> > > Here's the GitHub repo <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/
> <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/>
> > <https://github.com/lukasbystricky/ <https://github.com/
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/> <https://
> > groups.google.com/d/msgid/ <http://groups.google.com/d/msgid/>>>
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Lukas Bystricky

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Oct 11, 2025, 1:56:25 PMOct 11
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Yes, sorry that's what I meant. 

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Lukas Bystricky

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Oct 26, 2025, 2:53:54 AM (yesterday) Oct 26
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I think I'd like to use this as the cover. Suitably dark yet slightly ambiguous.

Assuming that's ok, it's ready for review. Alex, how do you want to handle this? Since some of the stories aren't officially PD yet I haven't pushed them to GitHub. Should Robin and I handle the review privately? 



Weijia Cheng

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Oct 26, 2025, 7:06:25 AM (yesterday) Oct 26
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The cover art looks fine to me. I assigned it in the database.
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