My Corner Online

 

Life Magazine on Google Books

 

11/18/2009

I think this is such a cool advancement in the internet world!

Google announced that Google Books has published the entire collection of famous LIFE magazine issues–almost 1900 issues, spanning 1936 to 1972. This really cool part is a full-text search of the magazine’s entire history. It's a wonderful addiction to the history resources online! How cool is that?

The Berne Convention sets forth the duration of the copyright as the life of the artist plus a minimum of 50 years. Thereafter, each country sets forth further standards. In the United States, the length of a copyright is the life of the artist plus 70 years. Therefore, I am a bit confused as to how these Life books have become "public domain." Fifty years about is 1959 and 70 years ago is 1939.

Google Books recently settled a lawsuit regarding copyright.

If you have not investigated Google Books yet, you should! https://books.google.com/
Here is the home page for the Life Magazine.

You can also view the catalog of Life Magazine images here:https://images.google.com/hosted/life
I was personally interested in the photos from Missouri.

Google is also partnering with On Demand Books so that you may purchase public domain books digitized by Google from any Espresso Book Machine at bookstores and libraries around the world. I have not seen one of these machines, but am certainly going to keep my eye out for one!