Jon Ingram writes:
The UK law is life+70, for books both before and after 1909.
Is it? The Canadian amendment in the 1920s which moved us from fixed to life+ terms, expressly provided that the life+ term did not serve to revive copyright in works which had already passed from copyright: 11-12 Geo. V., c. 24 41(1) Where any person is immediately before the commencement of this Act entitled to any such right in any work as is specified in the first column of the First Schedule to this Act, or to any interest in such a right, he shall, as from that date, be entitled to the subsituted right set forth in the second column of that Schedule or to the same interset in such a substituted right, and to no other right or interest, and such substitued right shall subsist for the term for which it would have subsisted if this Act had been in force at the date when the work was made... (3) Subject to the provisions of subsection six and seven of section 18 of this Act, copyright shall not subsist in any work made before the commencement of this Act, otherwise than under, and in accordance with, the provisions of this section. 44. No person shall be entitled to copyright... otherwise than under and in accordance with the provisions of this Act... The schedule sets out the old and new definition of "copyright" in works other than musical works. The effect of this transitional provision is that works which were still under copyright — i.e., in which a person was entitled to a right — are subject to that right for the new, life+50 Berne term. By necessary implication, those who do NOT have a right as of the commencement of the Act, do not have the benefit of the new term. By a later amendment, the commencement was fixed as January 1, 1924. The pre-Berne copyright term in Canada was the old 28+14 renewable one, with formalities. Thus, any work published in Canada before January 1, 1924 without the appropriate formalities, is public domain in Canada regardless of whether it would be copyrighted under the life+50 rule, if it applied. There is Canadian case law upholding the pre-Berne formalities requirement. Similarly, no work published in Canada before 1883 can possibly be copyright in Canada, as even if the formalities were complied with, and the term was renewed, such a work was public domain — no one was entitled to a right — by the time the new Berne term cam in on January 1, 1924. Works published outside Canada are in a murkier area, which I still haven't been able to resolve. I thought the Canadian transition to Berne was modelled to at least some extent on the UK one. It might be worth double-checking the UK statute which adopted the Berne term to see whether, upon a proper construction, and in concert with the stupid, stupid, stupid move to life+70, it would result in a larger public domain than the life+ rule, strictly applied, would give.