: Want to publish unpublished work found in an auction storage unit I started buying storage auctions in the middle of this year. In the third one I bought I ran across an unpublished manuscript

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For what it's worth I think what you're trying to do is awesome!

As @Surtsey 's answer (correctly) points out the work is still copyrighted regardless of the absence of an explicit copyright notice.

Assuming US copyright law applies here (you don't mention a locale so apologies if that is incorrect) then, unless some other entity had acquired it, ownership of the copyright passes to the author's heirs on their death and it's them that you'd need to contact in order to gain permission to publish the manuscript.

The company that operates the storage units might be the best place to start in terms of tracking them down.

You mention that the author died in 2019 - which means that the work won't be in the public domain yet (it will be in 2089 though).

Good luck!

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This question addresses what I think you should do (not whether or not you can legally publish).

Make every effort you can to contact people who might care about the ms. That would be his family first, if you can find them.

A google search finds several organizations devoted to submariners. Here's one: www.isausa.org/ . They might be interested in publishing this, or at least preserving it in their archives or sharing with their members.

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You cannot publish the work without permission. It was copyrighted the moment it was written. The fact that you 'purchased' the manuscript is no defence. By that token I could 'publish' all the books I have purchased. You need to purchase the copyright from the family.

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