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Note that while this applies to the UK [edit: not US, thanks boomboomsubban] (and some other life+70 countries), the copyright on his work has already expired i
by paulgb 6y ago
Note that while this applies to the UK [edit: not US, thanks boomboomsubban] (and some other life+70 countries), the copyright on his work has already expired in some countries.
In Canada, the copyright term is life + 50 rather than life + 70, the minimum under the Berne Convention. In Australia, only authors who died after 1955 (Orwell died in 1950) get life + 70; authors such as Orwell are "grandfathered in" to life + 50.
IIRC (although I can't find a source now), this confusing patchwork of copyright was the root cause behind the infamous deletion of some copies of 1984 from Kindles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18am...
- boomboomsubban 6y ago>Note that while this applies to the US It doesn't. His books are still covered under whatever law set up 95 years since publication, so it's a decade until his earliest releases enter public domain and ~25 for 1984.
- paulgb 6y agoYou're right, thanks. I've edited it.
- m463 6y agoOn the other hand, the US gets The Great Gatsby today
- rriepe 6y agoAnd just in time!
- MichaelZuo 6y agoDo you know how this interacts with NAFTA 2.0? If a work can be used for profit in Canada and not in the US...
- quercusa 6y agoThat would be the 'Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- 082349872349872 6y agoThanks, that explains why Such Such Were The Joys is available on an australian site, yet the TFA seemed to say it was still tied up. (I wonder to what degree my heterodox take on 1984 is due to the fact that I read SSWtJ, in combination with The Spike and other essays, well before having read 1984 itself?)
- bawolff 6y ago> In Canada, the copyright term is life + 50 Not for long, trump pressured us to change to life+70 which is probably coming sometime next year. :(
- mcv 6y agoWhy is life+70 so standard? Even life+50 seems excessive. I can understand life, I can understand protecting copyright for a number of years after death so something written just before an author's death still benefits their family. But to preserver the copyright of works written when they were young, for literal generations after their death, that's just plain ridiculous. Also, life shouldn't even matter once the copyright is not in the hands of the original author anymore. Just give copyright a set length from time of publication (30, 50, or even 70 if necessary), unless it's held by the original author, in which case it's the maximum of life or that number. That already seems way more than necessary. Anything more than that is just monopolisation of culture and has nothing to do with protecting the interests of the author or the initial publisher.
- kwere 6y agolaugh in Disney copyrigths...