Copyright question

So does this copyright law supercede the authors year of death as a determining factor? Does this only apply to US copyright? If it's going to be universally applied then H is 1937; date of US publication would be irrelevant. Plus, that's only the first edition text; so you'd have to be carefull what you printed.

I think we discussed this before too in respect to some countries only being 50 years post-death for copyright anyway. So for Tolkien that would be 2024 for everything basically.

I think this only applies to when works were first published in the US, which is why The Hobbit would be 2034, but this will probably be tested in court, and as you pointed out, other countries have different rules on when copyright ends.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019 ... -works-into-public-domain

It is interesting to see that some Agatha Christie Poirot stories are copyright in the UK, but public domain in the US now, an example would be The Murder on the Links which was published in the US in 1923.

I'm confused: did the US never use author death dates? Agatha Christie died in 1976 so all her work is in copyright until 1st January 2047 going by UK (& old US) copyright law, yes? But now... author death date doesn't matter?

Okay, I've read a bit of the detail. Don't see the specifics but I assume the 1923 rule applies regardless of the author's death, which is odd. The US copyright laws are ludicrously complicated. One interesting bit is the stuff written but not published before 1978 & the copyright needing to have been renewed 28 years later. Would this not apply to some of the posthumous Legendarium material? Publication isn't the test, it seems to imply when it was written as being important. That's crazy complicated. In respect to Tolkien, there have been a lot of copyright renewals; I wonder how all this plays out in respect to Tolkien & public domain generally.

I think you made some very valid points.

So here is a question for everyone, in the US do you think that A Northern Venture: Verses by Members of the Leeds University English School Association http://www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=36, is public domain even though it was not published in the US but was published in 1923?

It is extremely unlikely that we will get as far as 1928 with works dropping into the public domain. The last push-back Disney got was 20 years, IIRC (which is how the whole 1923 thing happened). 1928 (2024) is the year that Steamboat Willie would go out of copyright in the US. That will not be allowed to happen.

As far as I am aware, nothing has changed and it is either 70 after death if the copyright is owned by the author or 95 years after publication if copyright is owned by the publisher. Good luck to you if you want to take on anyone claiming to hold copyright. You will need deep pockets.

Deagol wrote:
As far as I am aware, nothing has changed and it is either 70 after death if the copyright is owned by the author or 95 years after publication if copyright is owned by the publisher. Good luck to you if you want to take on anyone claiming to hold copyright. You will need deep pockets.

That is for works created after 1978. 70 years after the death of an author. Iif it is a work for hire it is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever comes first.

Works created before 1978 have a maximum of 95 years under US law which given the titles about to fall into PD in the next decade will be challenged forcefully.

It will all change again within the next few years. Current US copyright law (and the whole 1923 thing) happened because of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act