Philip K. Dick’s short story, Small Town, is PUBLIC DOMAIN. Here’s a |PDF| of it.

Small Town was first published in the May 1954 issue of Amazing Stories. Here is the copyright page from that issue:

The fact that the story was not previously known to be PUBLIC DOMAIN is because there was a bogus copyright renewal claim made in 1983. In order for a claim to be properly renewed the first publication date must be cited in the renewal form. It wasn’t. Instead a false first publication date was swapped in.

RE190631 Page 2 (back) includes Small Town:

As you can see in a scan of the renewal form, pictured above, the renewer has stated that the story was published in the May 1955 issue of Amazing Stories. This is completely false. Here is the table of contents page from Amazing’s May 1955 issue:

Had the renewer, in 1983, noted the actual first publication date of Small Town the renewal wouldn’t have been valid. By 1983 the copyright had lapsed.

The evidence for bad faith in the copyright process doesn’t end there. Indeed, while story was subsequently republished in Amazing Stories – perhaps lending credence to the idea that the renewer had merely mistaken the first publication for the second, the republication wasn’t until the April 1967 issue of that magazine. And of course a notation in that 1967 re-publication cites the story as having been copyrighted in 1954.

Small Town by Philip K. Dick is PUBLIC DOMAIN!

Posted by Jesse Willis