Re: Hmm. This is getting obnoxious.


Mon, 10 Apr 1995 21:54:44 GMT

In <D6s447.LzD@eskimo.com>, blane@eskimo.com (Brian Lane) writes:
>Gerry Kevin Wilson (whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:
>: In article <GDR11.95Apr8103906@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
>: Gareth Rees <gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>: >Edgar Rice Burroughs died in 1950, so his works won't come out of
>: >copyright until the year 2000; later, if the copyright laws are changed
>: >before then. However, given the speed with which adventure games get
>: >completed, it might be worth starting now on the assumption that by the
>: >time you are finished, the works will be out of copyright!

This is true in the UK, but in the US his works would fall under the
despicable old US law, based on the years since publication, and also
based on whether the books were printed in the US, whether they were in
English, whether the author was a US citizen, and whether all the
bureaucratic rules were followed and forms filled out. (It used to be
quite possible to lose copyright in the US merely by putting the
copyright notice in some other location than the verso of the title
page; "The Lord of the Rings" lost its US copyright because more than
1000 sets of unbound sheets were imported from the UK to be put into
bindings by the US publisher.

> I 'thought' copyrights were good for only 7 years after the authors death?

50 years, in all civilized countries. In many, the WWII years didn't
count toward the 50.