User talk:Linda,LCADC

Welcome!

Hello, Linda,LCADC! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Regards, CycloneNimrod talk?contribs? 15:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

July 2008

Thanks for experimenting with the page Alcoholics Anonymous on Wikipedia. Your recent edit appears to have added incorrect information, and has been reverted or removed. All information in the encyclopedia must be verifiable in a reliable published source. If you believe the information you added was correct, please cite references or sources or discuss the changes on the article's talk page before making them. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thank you. -- Scarpy (talk) 02:45, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

AA Copyright

There has no current US copyright on the text of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is in the public domain.

The 1986 General Service Conference Final Report admits as much:

The copyright on the first edition of the Big Book lapsed in 1967, and the copyright on the new material in the second edition lapsed in 1983-both because of a failure to renew them in a timely fashion. There was a mistaken belief that registering the copyright on the second edition in 1956 served to revive the copyright on the first edition; the misconception continued, with respect to the second edition, when the third edition was copyrighted in 1976. (From page 15)

See a more detailed discussion at http://aagso.de/1939/uslaw.htm, which claims that AA World Services has admitted that the original manuscript was distributed without copyright notice. This would indicate that under the copyright law at the time, it was within the public domain from the start. Also within that page are copies of AA literature from the 10th World Service Conference that explicitly states that AA acknowledges that the copyright of the original text has expired.--Advocate (talk) 20:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)