Re: [gutvol-d] Copyright to 1909

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.

On 9/15/06, Wallace J.McLean <ag737@freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
Jon Ingram writes:
The UK law is life+70, for books both before and after 1909.
Is it?
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. 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, although not I believe in the USA. I believe this would cover most US-authored works published before 1923. -- Jon Ingram

And a recent post in BookPeople says: I looked at the 1909 Copyright Act, Sections 22 and 23, where it basically says that works in the English language published in a foreign country can get 5 years of interim copyright protection, in which time the copyright can create an authorized edition in the US and get a US copyright. IANAL, but this suggests to me that English language publications published abroad prior to 1918 are all in the public domain in the US because the interim copyright expired no later than 1922, and any copyrights from an authorized US edition obtained in 1917-1922 have lapsed. Is this 5 year provision still in force? To me this would seem to imply that English language books published abroad that have not been published in the US within 5 years would have no US copyright. In particular english language books never published in the US would have no copyright. Am I obviously missing something? Obviously the US Code not the copyright Act is probably the controlling factor. The clause may have been revoked. nwolcott2@post.harvard.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Ingram" <jon.ingram@gmail.com> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 6:02 PM Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Copyright to 1909
On 9/15/06, Wallace J.McLean <ag737@freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
Jon Ingram writes:
The UK law is life+70, for books both before and after 1909.
Is it?
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.
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, although not I believe in the USA. I believe this would cover most US-authored works published before 1923.
-- Jon Ingram _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006, Norm Wolcott wrote:
Is this 5 year provision still in force? To me this would seem to imply that English language books published abroad that have not been published in the US within 5 years would have no US copyright. In particular english language books never published in the US would have no copyright. Am I obviously missing something? Obviously the US Code not the copyright Act is probably the controlling factor. The clause may have been revoked.
No, the interim provision is not in force any more. The current law for new copyrights does not require a US registration to recognize foreign copyrights. The US is a Berne signatory now and wasn't during the life of the 1909 law. It did work that way, where if you didn't file within 5 years in the US you got no protection. That changed sometime in the 70's and the 1996 Uragray round made it retroactive. Lots of things came back under copyright in the US in 1996. That's why rule 6 only applies for US authors and for books first published in the US. It gets really hairy if both of those aren't true. IANAL and this isn't advise, but I've been beating my head against it for over a year now, and that's my understanding. If anyone has a better understanding pipe up. -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/
participants (4)
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Greg Weeks
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Jon Ingram
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Norm Wolcott
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Wallace J.McLean