Copyright Issues? - Vintage Crochet & Knitting Patterns

[flightoftheunicorn]

I just recently joined this guild, and I have a question for all of you. I have some lovely, cool, awesome crochet & knitting patterns that I bought on eBay that are from like the 1950s to the 1970s. Probably, most of the pattern books are out of print.

So, I was wondering, can I post them in the guild for people who might want to use them? They're so pretty! And, if I remember, there were some cool mod 60s patterns among my books too. I won't be able to post them for awhile - about a week and a half, most likely, because they're at my father's house and I won't be visiting him until next weekend.

However, I thought I'd ask you in advance so that I know whether or not to take the time to look for them next week. Once I have the books with me, I should be able to look their titles up on Amazon.com to see if they're still in print. If they're not, then it might (maybe?) be legal to share them with other people? What do you think?

If it's okay to post them, I'd like to share them with you all. biggrin  

[Silvander]

If they're out of print, it's likely that their copy right is expired. In which case, it's perfectly legal to put them up. The package might say when the copy right was, too. But I'd look it up first.  

[flightoftheunicorn]

Thanks for your feedback! When I find the pattern books (hopefully next weekend) I'll examine the books to find the copyright dates and try to figure things out. ^_^