Posted by Rick Denney on February 17, 2004 at 12:47:59:
In Reply to: Re: Public Domain?? posted by MB on February 17, 2004 at 11:05:23:
It was 28 years and renewable for another 28-year period up until the Copyright Act of 1978. After that, it was changed to 70 years after the death of the author, or 70 years after creation (if the author is anonymous or the copyright is held by a corporation).
The magic 1922 date comes from 1978 - 56 = 1922. Anything published in 1922 or earlier passed into the public domain before the 1978 law was enacted. Some works published before 1950 that were not renewed also passed into the public domain. Once in the public domain, always in the public domain, as long as you are working from the original publication and not a derivative work.
Stuff published after that time may have passed into the public domain as soon as 1993, if it was published anonymously in 1923 and the 70 years is up. But you can't know that unless you know how it was published--that's why you have to do a rights search or contact the publisher. And the 70-year period has been extended since that time, though I don't know when or for how long. Once it was no longer practical to know the answer by doing simple arithmetic from the printed copyright date, I gave up trying to keep up with changes to the law. Everything since 1922 requires a rights search to know for sure.
The 1978 law was justified by the desire to align U.S. law with common European laws, but changes since that time have mostly been justified by the recording industry wanting to retain copyright protection on their old movies and recordings. Before recordings, it wasn't an issue.
Rick "who has actually read the entire 1978 Copyright Act" Denney