3 ms·

I read "The duration of the U.S. protection for all other works… was for 70 years from the artist’s date of death" and thought wow, did Mondrian really live int

by bonzini 8mo ago

I read "The duration of the U.S. protection for all other works… was for 70 years from the artist’s date of death" and thought wow, did Mondrian really live into the 1960s or so? Next paragraph: "Mondrian died in 1944. Any of his works subject to a life-plus-70 regime would have entered the public domain" 10 years ago. Who even thought of including that in a legal argument??

Someone 8mo ago
based on your comment (the site is unresponsive, so I cannot check what exactly it says) I think the article is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Works_created_before_1978 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...: “For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication. Copyright renewal has been automatic since the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992. For works created before 1978, but not published or registered before 1978, the standard §302 copyright duration of 70 years from the author's death also applies. Prior to 1978, works had to be published or registered to receive copyright protection. Upon the effective date of the 1976 Copyright Act (which was January 1, 1978) this requirement was removed and these unpublished, unregistered works received protection. However, Congress intended to provide an incentive for these authors to publish their unpublished works. To provide that incentive, these works, if published before 2003, would not have their protection expire before 2048.”
- masfuerte 8mo ago
  You quote a section about unpublished work. The painting was published nearly a hundred years ago so the quote isn't relevant. If you think the article is wrong please state how.
  - Someone 8mo ago
    I don’t see that. “For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication” may not apply here, but if so, it isn’t because the work was published.
    - masfuerte 8mo ago
      Is this a guessing game? Which specific claim in the article do you think is wrong? What do you think is the true situation?
- bonzini 8mo ago
  The article is about the Mondrian estate picking and choosing between the 95 year, life+70, and life+80 rules—and being wrong in all three cases. So I wasn't doing a legal analysis of which rule is the correct one, but rather observing how their arguments are ridiculous.
input_sh 8mo ago
Life + 70 has always been an oversimplification, we still haven't even reached 70 years since the introduction of these rules (1973 in the US, in other countries depends on when the US strogarmed them into adopting similar rules). There's all sorts of quirks for anything published before that rule got standardised more-or-less worldwide, but in general 1930-1945 is still like a legal grey area that can be challenged in court and you should be good to go for anything published before that. And don't get me even started on posthumous publications, that's a whole different can of worms where a family member might claim some contribution (like for example Anne Frank's father), pushing the copyright further to the life of the author + life of that family member + 70.
- otherme123 8mo ago
  Do you really think that the whole world is waiting for whatever the US say to make their laws? Spain copyright law is dated 1879: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1879-40001 https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1879-40001 , based on the French _droit d'auteur_ laws of 1700's. About the matter being discused here, read Artículo 6: dead date + 80.
  - input_sh 8mo ago
    No I do not think it's an original concept of the US, more that it was the US that conditioned many other countries to adopt similar laws as a condition for trade deals / investments. As a concept it existed in one way or the other pretty much ever since the printing press.
    - otherme123 8mo ago
      It is not difficult to find that the "US conditioning other countries in the 1970's" actually started in 1886 at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention when 10 european countries agreed on legal principles to protect original works. Among these 10, France, Germany, Italy, France and UK, so in practice the whole Western Europe. US didn't join until 1989. The original treaty, if I am not misunderstanding here: https://www.wipo.int/en/web/treaties/ip/berne/summary_berne https://www.wipo.int/en/web/treaties/ip/berne/summary_berne includes a "dead + 50 recomended" protection since the 1908 revision, before that it was up to each country laws, and in 1948 it changed to "dead + 50 minimum mandatory". In 1993 it was raised to "dead + 70" in the UE, to be followed by the US with the same extension in 1988 in Sonny Bono Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act.

by bonzini 8mo ago

Someone 8mo ago

based on your comment (the site is unresponsive, so I cannot check what exactly it says) I think the article is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Works_created_before_1978 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...: “For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication. Copyright renewal has been automatic since the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992. For works created before 1978, but not published or registered before 1978, the standard §302 copyright duration of 70 years from the author's death also applies. Prior to 1978, works had to be published or registered to receive copyright protection. Upon the effective date of the 1976 Copyright Act (which was January 1, 1978) this requirement was removed and these unpublished, unregistered works received protection. However, Congress intended to provide an incentive for these authors to publish their unpublished works. To provide that incentive, these works, if published before 2003, would not have their protection expire before 2048.”

masfuerte 8mo ago
You quote a section about unpublished work. The painting was published nearly a hundred years ago so the quote isn't relevant. If you think the article is wrong please state how.
- Someone 8mo ago
  I don’t see that. “For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication” may not apply here, but if so, it isn’t because the work was published.
  - masfuerte 8mo ago
    Is this a guessing game? Which specific claim in the article do you think is wrong? What do you think is the true situation?
bonzini 8mo ago
The article is about the Mondrian estate picking and choosing between the 95 year, life+70, and life+80 rules—and being wrong in all three cases. So I wasn't doing a legal analysis of which rule is the correct one, but rather observing how their arguments are ridiculous.

input_sh 8mo ago

Life + 70 has always been an oversimplification, we still haven't even reached 70 years since the introduction of these rules (1973 in the US, in other countries depends on when the US strogarmed them into adopting similar rules). There's all sorts of quirks for anything published before that rule got standardised more-or-less worldwide, but in general 1930-1945 is still like a legal grey area that can be challenged in court and you should be good to go for anything published before that. And don't get me even started on posthumous publications, that's a whole different can of worms where a family member might claim some contribution (like for example Anne Frank's father), pushing the copyright further to the life of the author + life of that family member + 70.

otherme123 8mo ago
Do you really think that the whole world is waiting for whatever the US say to make their laws? Spain copyright law is dated 1879: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1879-40001 https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1879-40001 , based on the French _droit d'auteur_ laws of 1700's. About the matter being discused here, read Artículo 6: dead date + 80.
- input_sh 8mo ago
  No I do not think it's an original concept of the US, more that it was the US that conditioned many other countries to adopt similar laws as a condition for trade deals / investments. As a concept it existed in one way or the other pretty much ever since the printing press.
  - otherme123 8mo ago
    It is not difficult to find that the "US conditioning other countries in the 1970's" actually started in 1886 at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention when 10 european countries agreed on legal principles to protect original works. Among these 10, France, Germany, Italy, France and UK, so in practice the whole Western Europe. US didn't join until 1989. The original treaty, if I am not misunderstanding here: https://www.wipo.int/en/web/treaties/ip/berne/summary_berne https://www.wipo.int/en/web/treaties/ip/berne/summary_berne includes a "dead + 50 recomended" protection since the 1908 revision, before that it was up to each country laws, and in 1948 it changed to "dead + 50 minimum mandatory". In 1993 it was raised to "dead + 70" in the UE, to be followed by the US with the same extension in 1988 in Sonny Bono Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act.