The Aberree Is Copyright-Free
The Aberree was published in the 1950s and 1960s. Under the U.S. law that applied at that time, a work fell into the public domain if it did not have a copyright notice on it. Issues of the Aberree do not bear copyright notices.
In the November, 1954 issue of the Aberree, Alphia explains his thinking:
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WHEN WE CAN'T CREATE, WE'LL COPYRIGHT IT Several persons seem amazed, (so they write) that we don't copyright each issue of The ABERREE? "Why?" they ask. Well, it might be any one of three reasons: 1. Uncle Sam charges $4 to protect you from "other" thieves and plagiarists. 2. We doubt if anyone's going to steal anything we print. It's not that important. 3. Copyrighting everything you write is a confession that you have little faith in your ability to continue producing salable stuff--and that there may come a time when you'll have to fall back on your own, protected material to make a living. When we can't produce new copy for The ABERREE, The ABERREE ceases to exist, because we're certain no one wants to read what we said yesterday and today tomorrow. |
In keeping with the Harts' decision, I have chosen to place this entire web site in the public domain. Any content that I have added is just as copyright-free as the contents of the original Aberree. Feel free to do with it as you will.
And if you're creating works of your own, you might consider releasing them under the Creative Commons license, which makes it easier to share your work with others without giving up all your rights to your creations.