Pete writes “From The Melbourne Age librarians have warned that the free trade deal will lead to huge increases in copyright licence fees paid by Australians for use of intellectual property, including novels, poems, films and songs.
And a legal expert said it was literally a “Mickey Mouse” deal, as the Disney Corporation had been among its most powerful backers.
The 20-year extension of copyright terms brings Australia into line with US restrictions.
What’s that joke about where the 800 pound gorilla sits?”
Into line with the US — NOT!
The proposal is to extend the Australian copyright period to “life+70 years”. By contrast, US law is “first publication + 70 years + 20 years for anything published after 1923” — or something like that. So for example, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) will have ALL of her works taken out of the public domain in Australia, while Americans will still be free to read The Voyage Out (1915).
This make no more sense than the current laws. But it’s not about books, it’s about Snow White and Mickey.
American copyright
There is an excellent chart at http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm that shows the terms of copyright over the years in the US.
Re:Into line with the US — NOT!
Actually, the U.S. line is also “life + 70 years,” for works created in 1978 and after. It reflects two separate stages of legislation:
1) The Copyright Act of 1977 changed copyright limits for new works to “life + 50 years” for personal copyright owners; if the copyright belonged to a corporate parent, then it was 75 years. But the “life +” standard apparently did not apply retroactively and I don’t think it took anything that was in the public domain and put it back into copyright.
2) In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act bumped both personal and corporate copyright terms by an additional 20 years.
So, here in the U.S., yes, Virginia Woolf’s pre-1923 work is in the public domain. And if Congress doesn’t extend the copyright term further, the rest of her works will enter the public domain on the schedule of first pub. + 70 years.
However … for Michael Cunningham’s The Hours: first he dies, and then we start counting down 70 years from the deathdate to when his work enters public domain.
Not a lawyer, law student or someone who has studied copyright extensively, so, $0.02, YMMV, etc. This is a good basic overview of American copyright.
Re:American copyright … I forgot all about those. There’s even more extensive ones for determining when a library is allowed to make physical/digital master copies for archival/preservation purposes.
Thanks for the chart