Copyright x The Macabre
Thursday, June 24, 2010
[Slightly grim collection of notes, possibly only of interest to me.]
United Kingdom: The term of protection in the UK for an original written (literary), theatrical (dramatic) musical or artistic work lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years from the end of the year in which he/she died. (Intellectual Property Office)
United States: Anything copyrighted or published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. Works never published prior to 2003 and never registered for copyright prior to 1978 are now in the public domain in the US if they are by authors who died more than 70 years before the most recent New Year's day. (Handy site from Penn)
[So the UK will give us new editions whilst the US gives us "unpublished stories & letters".]
After the jump - authors that died in 1941 & some genre authors that enter the public domain over the next few years.
Authors that died in 1941:
James Joyce (Ireland)
Sherwood Anderson (US)
Virginia Woolf (UK)
The "death years" of some genre authors:
A. Merritt (US) (1943)
E.R. Eddison (UK) (1945)
H.G. Wells (UK) (1946)
Arthur Machen (UK) (1947)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (US) (1950)
Algernon Blackwood (UK) (1951)
Lord Dunsany (UK) (1957)
Henry Kuttner (US) (1958)
Clark Ashton Smith (US) (1961)
C.S. Lewis (UK) (1963)