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boing boing - Happy Public Domain Day: here are the works that copyright extension stole from you in 2015 and Center for the Study of the Public Domain
Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1958 would enter the public domain on January 1, 2015, where they would be “free as the air to common use.” Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2054.1 And no published works will enter our public domain until 2019. The laws in other countries are different—thousands of works are entering the public domain in Canada and the EU on January 1.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 01 2015, @02:35PM
Twenty years seems good for the author as well. I don't own the books I wrote; nobody does, and everybody does. You should not have to be dead for me to take your work and reshape it into my own.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday January 01 2015, @08:03PM
FTFY, based on current copyright times.