Does anyone know what happened to Hayden
Books? I have a robot
book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and
post it to
6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current
references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just
pass quietly.
I wanted to do the same thing. I contacted the author of a book and he had
no idea. Here is what he said.
"Most of that company was sold in the mid 1980s and I don't know which
company, if any, ended up with the copyrights to the books. It might
reside with Penton Media (headquartered in Cleveland) since they acquired
in 1989 most of properties that were first sold to VNU, a Dutch publishing
company in 1986. I don't know if the Book division was part of those sales
or if it was just disbanded or sold to yet another publishing company in 1986."
If you ask any of those companies, they will assume they do own the rights
and just say "NO".
Here is what the US copyright office says:
"How can I find out who owns a copyright?
We can provide you with the information available in our records. A search
of registrations, renewals, and recorded transfers of ownership made before
1978 requires a manual search of our files. Upon request, our staff will
search our records at the statutory rate of $150 for each hour. There is no
fee if you conduct a search in person at the Copyright Office. Copyright
registrations made and documents recorded from 1978 to date are available
for searching online. For further information, see Circular 22, How to
Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, and Circular 23, Copyright Card
Catalog and the Online File."
My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer
exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book
public domain or at least owned by the author?
Grant