Philip K. Dick copyright renewal and registration scans

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

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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.

5. Still have not responded.
   What a pity!

6. I would have to reread the story, and have not yet done so.

7. To will be, or not to will be, that is the question :)