Once you’ve set up cover.svg, it’s time to find a suitable fine art painting to use for the cover image.
The paintings we use are all in the U.S. public domain (PD). Your task is to locate a painting suitable for the kind of book you’re producing, and then demonstrate that the painting is indeed in the U.S. public domain.
-U.S. copyright law is complicated. Because of this, we require that you provide a link to a page scan of a 1923-or-older book that reproduces the painting you selected. This is a hard requirement to demonstrate that the painting you selected is in fact in the U.S. public domain. Just because a painting is very old, or Wikipedia says it’s PD, or it’s PD in a country besides the U.S., doesn’t necessarily mean it actually is PD in the U.S.
+U.S. copyright law is complicated. Because of this, we require that you provide a link to a page scan of a 1924-or-older book that reproduces the painting you selected. This is a hard requirement to demonstrate that the painting you selected is in fact in the U.S. public domain. Just because a painting is very old, or Wikipedia says it’s PD, or it’s PD in a country besides the U.S., doesn’t necessarily mean it actually is PD in the U.S.
The painting you select must be a fine-art oil painting. We require this to maintain a consistency in the overall style of all of our covers.
-To actually demonstrate that a painting is PD, you must locate a reproduction of that painting in a 1923-or-older book.
+To actually demonstrate that a painting is PD, you must locate a reproduction of that painting in a 1924-or-older book.
This can be quite difficult. Many people find this to be the most time-consuming part of the ebook production process.
Because of the difficulty, finding suitable cover at is all about compromise. You’re unlikely to find the perfect cover image. You’ll find a lot of paintings that would be great matches, but that you can’t find reproductions of and thus we can’t use. So, be ready to compromise.
Sometimes the catalog record for a book has an incorrect publication year. Please verify the page scan of the copyright page to ensure the book is 1923 or older.
+Sometimes the catalog record for a book has an incorrect publication year. Please verify the page scan of the copyright page to ensure the book is 1924 or older.
In older books it was common to have etchings of paintings. Etchings are not strict reproductions, and so we cannot count them when researching PD status.
@@ -151,17 +151,17 @@ require_once('Core.php');Your first stop should be Google Books. Google Books allows you to filter results so that you only see 1923-or-older books. You can use this shortcut to search Google Books for 1923-or-older books.
+Your first stop should be Google Books. Google Books allows you to filter results so that you only see 1924-or-older books. You can use this shortcut to search Google Books for 1924-or-older books.
Google Books is a convenient first stop because its thumbnail view is very fast, and it does a better job of highlighting search results than HathiTrust or Internet Archive.
If you can’t find anything on Google Books, next go to HathiTrust. HathiTrust’s thumbnail view is much slower, but it has a different catalog than Google Books does. You can use this shortcut to search HathiTrust for 1923-or-older books.
+If you can’t find anything on Google Books, next go to HathiTrust. HathiTrust’s thumbnail view is much slower, but it has a different catalog than Google Books does. You can use this shortcut to search HathiTrust for 1924-or-older books.
Lastly, try the Internet Archive. IA has a similar catalog as Google Books, but you may still find something there. You can use this shortcut to search the Internet Archive for 1923-or-older books.
+Lastly, try the Internet Archive. IA has a similar catalog as Google Books, but you may still find something there. You can use this shortcut to search the Internet Archive for 1924-or-older books.
Once you’ve found a reproduction of your artwork in a 1923-or-older book, you need to find a high-resolution color scan that we can use for the cover. Various museum sites can be good for this, along with Wikimedia Commons, Google Art Project, and Wikiart.org.
+Once you’ve found a reproduction of your artwork in a 1924-or-older book, you need to find a high-resolution color scan that we can use for the cover. Various museum sites can be good for this, along with Wikimedia Commons, Google Art Project, and Wikiart.org.
I found a great painting, and Wikipedia says it’s public domain, but I can’t find a reproduction in a book. Can I use it?
-No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1923 or earlier.
+No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1924 or earlier.
I found a great painting, and it’s really old, and the author died a long time ago, but I can’t find a reproduction in a book. Can I use it?
-No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1923 or earlier.
+No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1924 or earlier.
I’ve found a reproduction in a book, but the book was published in 1924. Is that OK?
-No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1923 or earlier.
+No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1924 or earlier.
I’ve found a scan on a museum site. Is that OK?
-No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1923 or earlier.
+No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1924 or earlier.
But...
-No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1923 or earlier.
+No. You must find a reproduction of your selected painting in a book published in 1924 or earlier.
Each of those sources allows you to filter results by publication date, so make sure you select 1923 and earlier to ensure they’re in the US public domain.
+Each of those sources allows you to filter results by publication date, so make sure you select 1924 and earlier to ensure they’re in the US public domain.
If you can’t find scans of your book at the above sources, and you’re using a Project Gutenberg transcription as source material, there’s a good chance that PGDP (the sister project of Project Gutenberg that does the actual transcriptions) has a copy of the scans they used accessible in their archives. You should only use the PGDP archives as a last resort; because their scans are not searchable, verifying typos becomes extremely time-consuming.
Please keep the following important notes in mind when searching for page scans:
Make sure the scans you find are published in 1923 or earlier. You must verify the copyright page in the page scans before proceeding.
+Make sure the scans you find are published in 1924 or earlier. You must verify the copyright page in the page scans before proceeding.
Often you’ll find different editions, published at different times by different publishers, for the same book. It’s worth the effort to quickly browse through each different one to get an idea of the kinds of changes the different publishers introduced. Maybe one edition is better than another!
@@ -305,7 +305,7 @@ require_once('Core.php');The image you pick should be a “fine art” oil painting so that all Standard Ebooks have a consistent cover style. This is actually easier than you think, because it turns out most public domain artwork is from the era of fine art.
You must provide proof of public domain status to the SE Editor-in-Chief in the form of a page scan of the painting from a 1923-or-older book, and the Editor-in-Chief must approve your selection before you can commit it to your repository.
+You must provide proof of public domain status to the SE Editor-in-Chief in the form of a page scan of the painting from a 1924-or-older book, and the Editor-in-Chief must approve your selection before you can commit it to your repository.
The Standard Ebooks Editor-in-Chief has the final say on the cover image you pick, and it may be rejected for, among other things, poor public domain status research, being too low resolution, not fitting in with the “fine art” style, or being otherwise inappropriate for your ebook.