Charles Hayward's Carpentry for Beginners book reprint

[Matt Stiegler]

David Keller has posted here that "Bar none, the best book on preparing stock, sawing, and making woodworking joints with handtools is no longer in print - It's Charles Hayward's "Carpentry for Beginners". It goes for relatively high prices for an out-of-print book, but there's a reason - it's really worth paying $50-$75 for this book."

Good news: its been reprinted (as of May of this year), and is now available for under $20 on amazon here. I'd never heard of it before, and have a bit of a book backlog already, but with that sort of review from David it's in my cart.

[Peter Evans]

That is the first Hayward reprint for many years, Hayward lived to a ripe old age, 99 years and his books will not be out of copyright until 2068. Apparently there are copyright ownership problems, so, nice to see a great title returning.

Hayward wrote many books (I have almost all of them) and hundreds of magazine articles from the early 1920's to late 1980's; naturally there is a lot of recycling of material. Nice if an editor could combine all the (unique) material into a small number of titles for republishing for a new audience - using Hayward's wonderful illustrations. Editions after c. 1970 were edited by someone else and re-illustrated - avoid these dumbed down editions.

[Billy Chambless]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Joel Moskowitz]

That is the first Hayward reprint for many years, Hayward lived to a ripe old age, 99 years and his books will not be out of copyright until 2068. Apparently there are copyright ownership problems, so, nice to see a great title returning.

Hayward wrote many books (I have almost all of them) and hundreds of magazine articles from the early 1920's to late 1980's; naturally there is a lot of recycling of material. Nice if an editor could combine all the (unique) material into a small number of titles for republishing for a new audience - using Hayward's wonderful illustrations. Editions after c. 1970 were edited by someone else and re-illustrated - avoid these dumbed down editions.

this is actually a bookleg copy.

[Matt Stiegler]

Editions after c. 1970 were edited by someone else and re-illustrated - avoid these dumbed down editions.

Good to know. I wonder which edition this one reprints.

[Matt Stiegler]

this is actually a bookleg copy.

I don't doubt you're correct, but I'm surprised. I would have thought book copyrights would be easy enough to enforce that bootleg books wouldn't make it to mainstream retailers.

[Joel Moskowitz]

Amazon truly has no interest in enforcing anything. The estate isn't able to keep track of all this. I spent a lot of time a few years ago with the estate trying to clear rights and we couldn't - and with companies routinely scanning books or even just using google book scans to POD copies of older books there is no point in taking a financial risk. The loser is the reading public because if we were able to reprint the books we were planning to reset the type, clean up the illustrations so that they would reproduce nicely and reshoot the photos with the same setups and tools. It's a shame that won't happen.

my guess is that the market for pure facimiles will collapse except for booklegs and POD cheapo reprints from cheap scans. THere just isn't a lot of demand for most of these books and the market for an even slightly more expensive nicer edition is even more miniscule.

[Matt Stiegler]

It's a shame that won't happen.

Certainly agreed.

Pardon my ignorance about booklegs, but I doubt I'm the only one. Is this a situation where people buying this reprint are doing something which, as a practical matter, causes some harm to the estate? (Analogous to buying some of the woodriver knock-offs, which many have said here they would not do?)

[Joel Moskowitz]

Certainly agreed.

Pardon my ignorance about booklegs, but I doubt I'm the only one. Is this a situation where people buying this reprint are doing something which, as a practical matter, causes some harm to the estate? (Analogous to buying some of the woodriver knock-offs, which many have said here they would not do?)

Yes I doubt very highly they are paying a royalty to the Hayward estate.

[Matt Stiegler]

Well, I was curious enough about this that I picked up the phone and called the publisher, apparently a small husband and wife operation.

My first question was which edition this was that was reprinted, and he said it was the first US edition, published in 1949 in Philadelphia.

My second question concerned the copyright issue. He explained that publication of the book in the U.S. was, in their view, not an infringement, because (and I'm probably butchering this as I know nothing about copyright law) copyright holders have to renew the copyright 28 years after publication and Mr. Hayward or his estate did not, so in the U.S. the book is in the public domain. (He said publication overseas probably would be an infringement because international copyright law does not require renewal and simply runs according to the life of the author.) I didn't think to ask if they were paying a royalty, but given his answer I agree with Joel that he clearly is not. He was quite willing to chat about the issue, to his credit IMO.

I have no earthly idea whether the publisher is correct about the copyright, I'm just passing along what the publisher told me. (I hope this doesn't seem like I'm arguing with Joel about this. Really, my dumb thought when I called the publisher was just to ask them why the heck they're violating the law.)

[Joel Moskowitz]

The book was reprinted in 1978 by Drake when the copyright was renewed. Therefore the book is still in copyright - try asking the publisher that question and see what answer you get.

[Matt Stiegler]

Thanks again for the information, Joel.

[Peter Evans]

I was not aware of the US requirement for renewal. This Rutgers University site searches for copyright renewals:
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.html
and says:

"Any book published during the years 1923-1963 which is found in this file is still under copyright, as are all books published after 1964 (although until 1989 they still had to have proper notice and registration). Books published before 1923, or before Jan. 1, 1964 and not renewed, are out of copyright."

A search for Hayward finds no listing for any Charles Hayward title. BUT DOES THIS MATTER?

... http://copyright.cornell.edu/resourc...fm#Footnote_10
"10.Foreign works published after 1923 are likely to be still under copyright in the US because of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) modifying the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The URAA restored copyright in foreign works that as of 1 January 1996 had fallen into the public domain in the US because of a failure to comply with US formalities. One of the authors of the work had to be a non-US citizen or resident, the work could not have been published in the US within 30 days after its publication abroad, and the work needed to still be in copyright in the country of publication. Such works have a copyright term equivalent to that of an American work that had followed all of the formalities. For more information, see Library of Congress Copyright Office, Highlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA). Circular 38b. [Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, Copyright Office, 2004]. "

That suggests Hayward's titles are still in copyright, the renewal requirement not applying.

Joel, a huge pity about the project. I wonder how good the Carpentry reprint is? Probably just a scan. I believe a "best of..." would be a success if the copyright issue could ever be sorted out. By the way I am unrelated to Evans Bros.

[Wes Bischel]

Check your local library - our little library has a few copies.

Wes

[Joel Moskowitz]

Editions after c. 1970 were edited by someone else and re-illustrated - avoid these dumbed down editions.

That depends on the book - the main classics were unchanged. And I think overall the drake reprints were unchanged.