Jon Ingram writes:
Yes. The move from life+50 to life+70 in the UK was retroactive, and brought 20 years worth of material back into the copy-restricted realm from the public domain.
Which provisions of the UK Act operate to make the term retroactive? By my reading of the provisions of the Act which I have cited, it expressly does NOT make it retroactive.
Note, however, that if a non-UK work becomes public domain in its country of origin, then UK law states that it is also public domain in the UK... a common provision in copyright law in many countries,
In the EU, yes. "The rule of the lesser term." It's mandated by the EU's garbage copyright directive, as a pressure tactic to try and get the rest of the world to "harmonize". It's not all that common in the non-EU countries I've looked at, though.