Klarinet Archive - Posting 000136.txt from 2000/08

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Stoker`s Unfortunates (formerly Facial Ex.)
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 08:08:22 -0400

My point in the "Unfortunately" was that the books had reverted to the
public domain after a suitable time, and a book publisher was lamenting the
fact that they didn't think they could squeeze any more money out of it. I
find that laughable. In other words, the publisher doesn't want anything to
_ever_ revert to the PD.

I'm all for reasonable copyright lengths (the current copyright length in
the US may or may not be reasonable; in the UK "Peter Pan" is a special case
of perpetual copyright), but that "unfortunately" part in that publisher's
letter struck me as funny.

Bram Stoker died in 1912. All his works went into public domain a while
back - even under today's "life + 70" rule (the most generous copyright
provision ever) they'd have gone back to the PD.

In the US, "For anonymous and pseudonymous works and works made for hire,
the term will be 95 years from the year of first publication or 120 years
from the year of creation, whichever expires first"(1) - which I personally
think is an abomination, but that's a different story ...

Mark C.

(1) http://www.loc.gov/copyright/faq.html#q46

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