3 ms·
"merely requires you to know the death date of the author" That's a pretty big merely! I can't tell you whether some obscure book is PD just by looking at the
by benj111 7y ago
"merely requires you to know the death date of the author"
That's a pretty big merely!
I can't tell you whether some obscure book is PD just by looking at the book. At worst you're basically working out when and if someone died just based on their name. Quick is Joe Blogs alive or dead?
Then there's the question of who the author is. I believe theres been a court case over Anne Franks diaries and whether her father was an author.
Edit: Maybe not a court case https://solargeneral.org/anne-frank-diary-co-authored-by-her-father/ https://solargeneral.org/anne-frank-diary-co-authored-by-her...
- jcranmer 7y agoAs I said, I'm not a fan of the "life plus N years" copyright term, but that's what the world has settled on (see Berne copyright convention--note that the life+50 is present at least as early as 1908, maybe as far back as 1886). In the US, the law essentially requires that copyright owners need to explicitly inform the Copyright Office of the author's death date, or at least of evidence that the author was alive at a given point of time. Without that evidence, there is a complete defense that the 95/120 term is in effect. (See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302).