Philip K. Dick copyright renewal and registration scans

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This post is a follow up to my “Philip K. Dick’s PUBLIC DOMAIN short stories, novelettes and novellas” post from August 25th, 2011. Since then I have received a number of scanned photocopies from the U.S. Copyright Office. These scans should be of great interest in the hunt for all of Philip K. Dick’s PUBLIC DOMAIN short stories. They show a number of anomalies and errors that bear upon the copyright status of many of Dick’s short stories, novellas and novelettes published between 1952 and 1963.

Stories that are referenced in the scans are noted above each image. I take the “RE” prefix to mean RENEWAL, and the “B” prefix is for an original copyright claim. These scans have also been added to the original post stories with the link labelled “COS” for copyright office scan.

RE220675 Page 1 (front):
RE220675 Page 1

RE220675 Page 1 (back) Pay For The Printer, A Glass Of Darkness, Vulcan’s Hammer, The Unreconstructed M, Misadjustment:
RE220675 Page 1 (back) - Pay For The Printer, A Glass Of Darkness, Vulcan's Hammer, The Unreconstructed M, Misadjustment

RE190631 Page 1 (front):
RE190631 Page 1 (front)

RE190631 Page 1 (back) War Veteran, Captive Market, The Mold Of Yancy, A Surface Raid, The Hood Maker, The Chromium Fence, Psi-Man Heal My Child:
RE190631 Page 1 (back)

RE190631 Page 2 (front) Nanny, Service Call, Autofac, Minority Report, To Serve The Master, The Father Thing, Foster, You’re Dead, The Golden Man:
RE190631 Page 2 (front) - Nanny, Service Call, Autofac, Minority Report, To Serve The Master, The Father Thing, Foster, You're Dead, The Golden Man

RE190631 Page 2 (back) Prominent Author, Progeny, Exhibit Piece, Shell Game, A World Of Talent, James P. Crow, Small Town, Survey Team, Sales Pitch, Time Pawn, Breakfast At Twilight, The Crawlers, Of Withered Apples, Adjustment Team, Meddler:
RE190631 Page 2 (back) Prominent Author, Progeny, Exhibit Piece, Shell Game, A World Of Talent, James P. Crow, Small Town, Survey Team, Sales Pitch, Time Pawn, Breakfast At Twilight, The Crawlers, Of Withered Apples, Adjustment Team, Meddler

RE190631 Page 3 (front) Souvenir, The Last Of The Masters, Upon The Dull Earth, Strange Eden, Jon’s World, The Turning Wheel, Human Is:
RE190631 Page 3 (front) Souvenir, The Last Of The Masters, Upon The Dull Earth, Strange Eden, Jon's World, The Turning Wheel, Human Is

RE190631 Page 3 (back):
RE190631 Page 3 (back)

RE115661 Page 1 (front):
RE115661 Page 1 (front)

RE115661 Page 1 (back) The Defenders, Mr. Spaceship, Piper In The Woods, Roog, The Infinites, Second Variety, The World She Wanted:
RE115661 Page 1 (back) The Defenders, Mr. Spaceship, Piper In The Woods, Roog, The Infinites, Second Variety, The World She Wanted

RE115661 Page 2 (front) Colony, The Cookie Lady, Impostor, Martians Come In Clouds, Paycheck, The Preserving Machine, The Cosmic Poachers, Expendable:
RE115661 Page 2 (front) Colony, The Cookie Lady, Impostor, Martians Come In Clouds, Paycheck, The Preserving Machine, The Cosmic Poachers, Expendable

RE115661 Page 2 (back) The Indefatigable Frog, The Commuter, Out In The Garden, The Great C, The King Of The Elves, The Trouble With Bubbles, The Variable Man, The Impossible Planet, Planet For Transients, Some Kinds Of Life, The Builder, The Hanging Stranger, Project Earth, The Eyes Have It, Tony And The Beetles:
RE115661 Page 2 (back) The Indefatigable Frog, The Commuter,  Out In The Garden, The Great C, The King Of The Elves, The Trouble With Bubbles, The Variable Man, The Impossible Planet, Planet For Transients, Some Kinds Of Life, The Builder, The Hanging Stranger, Project Earth, The Eyes Have It, Tony And The Beetles

B381157 Copyright registration for the November 1952 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes The Little Movement):
B381157 Copyright registration for the November 1952 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes The Little Movement)

B395238 Copyright registration for the February 1953 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes Roog):
B395238 Copyright registration for the February 1953 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes Roog)

RE68555 Page 1 (front) – Copyright renewal for the November 1952 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes The Little Movement):
RE68555 Page 1 (front) - Copyright renewal for the November 1952 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes The Little Movement):
RE68555 Page 1 (back):
RE68555 Page 1 (back)

RE68558 Page 1 (front) Copyright renewal for the February 1953 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes Roog):
RE68558 Page 1 (front) Copyright renewal for the February 1953 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (includes Roog)

RE68558 Page 1 (back):
RE68558 Page 1 (back)

Posted by Jesse Willis

7 thoughts to “Philip K. Dick copyright renewal and registration scans”

  1. Pingback: SF Signal
  2. The following text from an “anonymous archive uploader” came with the scans posted above:

    I believe the scans in “PKD_scans_from_Copyright_Office_trip_12-2010” are genuine scans of application copies made by Copyright Office employees. Their genuineness can be verified or disproved by obtaining copies directly from the Copyright Office and comparing them.

    On the scan of RE 190-631 notice the date by Paul Williams’ signature is Oct 27, 1983 while the Copyright Office box for Renewal Application Received is dated 22 Nov 1983. A stark contrast to RE 115-661’s December 30, 1981 date in the signature box and the December 31, 1981 date in the Copyright Office box for Renewal Application Received. To me this suggests Paul Williams didn’t mail the application directly to the Copyright Office. If I had the authority/power to investigate the matter, the first thing I’d want to do is look through the relevant court records from 1982 on, records of the law firm representing the heirs in 1982 & 1983, the records of Philip K. Dick’s literary agency during that period, Laura Coelho/Dick/Leslie’s records from 1982 on and Paul’s records from 1982 & 1983. Also any relevant records of Philip K. Dick, who apparently expressed a desire that Paul Williams be his literary exector after his death although he didn’t make a will or create any form of trust for his assets to the best of my knowledge. I include correspondence within the term records and that would include any relevant correspondence with K. W. Jeter, James Blaylock and especially Tim Powers since Philip K. Dick gave so many manuscripts and other materials to Powers during the last years of his life. Also, I’d want to investigate what Paul Willams was doing from about 1980-1984. He presumably would have had various literary, business, publishing and other affairs/projects of his own to wrap up or that simply overlapped. In 1980 or 1981 Philip K. Dick wrote Paul Williams a letter about a donation Philip K. Dick was making to help with costs of publishing a “book edition” of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a foreward by Jimmy Carter. A Wikipedia article states Williams and Hartwell co-edited and published it in 1981. I see the Books section of the Wikipedia article on Paul Williams indicates he was quite busy with writing, editing and publishing in the latter 1970s and early 1980s though it makes no mention of what he was doing in the way of journalism or other such employment. I imagine in 1983, Williams would have had some very detailed knowledge about composition and publication dates of songs by Neil Young and Bob Dylan but not about the short stories of Philip K. Dick. To state this in very clear language, I believe Williams was duped into signing a fraudulent copyright renewal application.

    If the inappropriately named Philip K. Dick Testamentary Trust truly believes “Adjustment Team” in not in the public domain in the United States, one has to wonder why it hasn’t sent DMCA takedown notices to the Wikimedia Foundation or why such notices didn’t result in the removal of the scan of the story from its first magazine publication and the plain text story created from the scan. One also has to wonder why the third rate comedy team that wrote the complaint against MRC II et al. claims the author submitted the story to his literary agency if he wasn’t authorizing the agency to get the story published. Additionally, if the estate is now claiming the first authorized publication of “Adjustment Team” was in 1973, why did it claim in a 1983 copyright renewal application that the first publication was in 1955 in a magazine no story of that title was published in?

  3. Time Pawn is listed as having been published in 1954 and yet on the copyright renewal it is listed as 1955. Does anyone know if this is PD or not?

  4. Let me ask you some questions about “Impostor”.

    1) Where was the body of a real Olham? On the ground beside ship or inside ship?
    First: “It’s a needle-ship, all right. There’s something beside it.”
    And “On the ground, bent and twisted in a strange shape, was a grotesque form. It looked
    human”
    But later: “They were dragging the grotesque remains from the ship.”

    2) Is “clearing” a pit or an open space in a forest?
    Is this a hole on the hillside? Because: “They stood around in a circle, staring down.”
    I find it difficult to understand. People constantly go up and down :)

    Thank you in advance.

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