Public Domain

[Tundra]

What books and images are in the public domain? I know that there's a date that predated copyright rules, so even if the person died in the 50s or 60s etc, if their work was produced before that date, it's not under the copyright laws... so, when was that date?

[Lord of Fools]

Well. The standard copyright, I believe, is 100 years after the person's death. Beatrix Potter had the first copyright taken out on Peter Rabbit, and I think that came out of copyright protection in 2006 or 7, so anything published by an author who died either before Beatrix Potter copyrighted the rabbit, or before 2008, excluding posthumous publications probably, is out of copyright.

[Gene]

With music, it's 50 years. That's why a bunch of singers and songwriters who've been going for almost 50 years, such as Cliff Richard, are trying to get the law changed by going to the European Court of Law, I think. There was an article on it in the paper not too long ago.

[Tundra]

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/ This site however, seems to imply that anything published in the US before 1923, is in the public domain...

[Thuriel]

^ Pretty much, yeah. Disney likes to push the copyright duration along so they keep the copyright of Mickey etc., so the basic guideline in the US is: pre-Disney, public domain; post-Disney, still under copyright.

[Aquamonet]

I know it is different across different countries. Here it is something like 100 years after you die. My law books upstairs explain it.

I would be interested to see how this reflects content written on the internet.

[MichaelB]

In Australia, copyright exists for 70 years after the author's death. Copyright can be exchanged or sold, whereas moral rights, which also last for 70 years after the author's death, cannot be exchanged.

Also, Australian copyright is immediate and automatic; it doesn't need to be registered like in the US; it also extends to include all currently known media types, including written work that was not produced for a company, audio, visual, and graphic creations, whether in hardcopy or on the internet.

[Thuriel]

^ It doesn't have to be registered in the US. It's good to have it registered, so the Library of Congress has a copy and bitter legal disputes can be resolved with it, but technically if you create something it's copyright (c) you whether you register it or not.

[Tundra]

Yep but there's a point where that started, for art and writing...