Copyright of reported testimony in a defunct newspaper?

Question

I'm writing an article on a trial that occurred in the 1930's, which was civil in nature. All transcipts have been lost or destroyed. However, newspapers of the time did report the testimony, quoting different parties to the litigation in their articles. Many of these quotes are in a now defunct newspaper, but not all. So, three questions:

1) Are the words of the trial participants, in quotes, as reported in a newspaper, copyrighted by the newspaper? In other words, if an article says that Mr. Jones affirmed, "Your honor, I have never seen that man before," is that quote copyrighted?

2) Are quotations of that nature, or for that matter, any material about a trial, which appeared in a newspaper that is no longer in business, still copyrighted, assuming the newspaper was not purchased and did not transfer its copyrights?

3) If a trial participant is quoted in multiple newspapers as saying the same thing, and the quotes are copyrighted, how would I attribute the quote?

Thanks!

Answer 1

the copyright rules in effect 70 years ago were quite different than current.  Hopefully you can find a copy of the complete paper. The copyright notice would have to appear on the first or second page, usually where the editor and publisher info is printed. Publication without notice places the entire work in public domain (except for credited sources).  Placement of copyright notice without actual registration was illegal.  Anything first published before about 1963 would have required at the least one periodic renewal of copyright, failure to timely renew put work in public domain. It is unlikely that any small town paper could afford the cost to register every edition at the copyright office, or pay the newal fees every 28 years for every edition.

even if the copyrights were payed and renewed, the use of short extracts from an article would certainly fall under fair use guidelines.

Answer 2

Are you certain the article is copyrighted? Publication, by itself, does not confer copyright protection. There has to be a notice that the contents of that particular issue are actusally copyrighted.

If there is a copyright notice, you can check with the Library of Congress to see if the copyright has been renewed or whether it has lapsed. If the copyright has lapsed, the article is in public domain.

Copyright law permits a usage of some copyright material for the purposes of scholarly research.

Attribution could be as follows:

According to the account published in the ______ edition of the Warwhoop-Telegraph, Joe Jones said sam Smith fell into the company's lens-grinding machine.

"He really made a spectacle of himself," Jones was reported as saying.