Author talk:Robert Ervin Howard

Important News

According to the wikipedia article on Robert E. Howard:

Within the United Kingdom, as in many other countries, the works written by an author fall into the public domain 70 years after their death.Since Robert E. Howard died in 1937, all his original works, including those featuring Conan the Barbarian, will be in the public domain from 1st January 2007. No publisher may claim any right upon his works from that date. His works and characters portrayed within them, including Conan the Barbarian, become public property, free for any and all to use as they wish.

This is simply NOT TRUE, and an oversimplification of UK Law. For a more accurate statement re UK copyright law and REH, please see the updated version of Paul Herman's Another Thought #4, that includes statements re UK, AU and CA laws, as well as updated on what is and is not PD in the US. Of special note, exceptional efforts by Paradox has raised the possibility that several Weird Tales stories are in fact NOT in the PD. Fair warning.

The new article can be found at http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4revised.html. Paul Herman

Public domain

There is a list available of which are considered public works of Robert E. Howard and which are not. http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4revised.html

Any of the ones in the public domain are appreciated additions to WikiSource.

ShotokanTuning 08:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Howard works at Project Gutenberg

I found quite a few more Howard stories here (scroll down 2 pages). They may be free to steal. Just letting you know anyway. --Anon lurker 21:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

For the record PG Australia works to the Australian copyright rules, which are not the same. -- Beardo (talk) 14:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Clean up

In an attempt to clean this page up a little, I've removed the chronological listing. It was interesting but inappropriate for wikisource. The listing can be seen in this previous version. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In line with other author pages on Wikisource, I have also been adding redlinks for public domain works by Robert E. Howard that have not yet been added to Wikisource. Apparently, most growth on the various wiki's are due to the presence of a redlinks and they at least point out gaps that potential wikisourcians can fill. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

...and now I have move poetry and letters to subpages (again, in line with other authors, in this case Cicero). The main page was getting too large and this caused a warning during editing. I've alphabetised the various works sections as well, which has the benefit of putting the smaller sections at the top and the much larger short story section at the bottom of the page. On top of this, I have begun to add entries for all of the entries still under copyright (or where the copyright is uncertain and may still apply). To prevent this getting in the way of links to works that are actually on Wikisource, I have hidden them in collapsible grey boxes (just click "show" on the right to view them). I have added this because they were sometimes being added as red links and this seems the best way to point out that they are not (yet) appropriate for Wikisource. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:17, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

When you're doing this, can you add notes about why these things are still under copyright?--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I can try but I don't know in a lot of cases. Most of it will be based on this article by Paul Herman. As he very litterally wrote the book on Howard's works, I think it's accurate. However, it mostly justs lists the stuff in the public domain and still has comments about the lack of information. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

From the amendments I have made so far, it is largely due to the publication date. The Cornell] list shows various copyright terms over the last century. Largely, a lot of works will be under copyright for 95 years after publication (even if they were published after Howard's death) as long as they were properly registered (where applicable). Some might be eligible for Wikilivres or maybe even a Wikisource on a non-American server. Anyway, I've soften the wording from "are still under copyright" to "may still be under copyright" as I am not absolutely sure of their status. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:01, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Librivox

A separate, yet similar, project called Librivox produce public domain audio files based on public domain works. I have added these to Wikimedia Commons and linked to them from the appropriate stories where a Librivox recording exists. To mark the stories that contain an audio version, I have added the following:-
Includes a spoken word version of this text.
Hopefully this does not cause too much visual clutter. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Copyright

Paul Herman has undertaken extensive research into the copyright status of works by Robert E. Howard. Herman released a document for a Howard website called REHeapa entitled: 'THE COPYRIGHT AND OWNERSHIP STATUS OF THE WORKS AND WORDS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD' in December of 2002. This document contains a comprehensive list of Howard works in the public domain. Some of his conjectures as to what is or is not public domain have been called into question by claimants to the rights to the work and are currently being researched. Anyone using Herman's original list are advised to consult the updated versions of the document.

• Original version (See The Internet Archive copy)
• Revised version (Jan 2007 CE) (See The Internet Archive copy)
• Further revised version (May 2007 CE) (See The Internet Archive copy)

External links

• Robert Ervin Howard on Wikipedia
• HowardWorks Complete bibliography with full publication histories
• Howard, Robert E. Project Gutenberg AU Multiple Stories online

The Fires of Asshurbanipal

This story appeared in Weird Tales, December 1936 - in which category should it be included here -- Beardo (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2023 (UTC)