My failed attempt to ascertain the status of a copyright

[Orusaka]

Hi, guys. I'm new here. I've been lurking for a while, but I figured I'd join today to tell of my journey trying to ascertain whether an ebook I'm putting together is in the public domain worldwide, or not.

Over the past few weeks I've spent a few dozen hours scanning, ocr-ing and manually checking every line by hand of Francis David Byrne's translation of "The Golden Ass", simply because it is, in my opinion, the best of the potential PD translations of it, and that more modern translations bring little to the table, and what could be considered the best translation could be had for free by all.

Now, in this process, I've also spent some 20 odd hours trying to find a date of death to establish public domain outside of the US. (where it's publication in 1905 automatically grants is PD status.) I have as of yet been unsuccessful in producing date of birth nor date of death, but I have produced many fascinating tidbits of information that paint a picture of the life of a man, that I figured I'd share.

Francis David Byrne (aka. Francis D. Byrne, F. D. Byrne):
1878: Matriculated in Ushaw college in June.
1880: Intermediate Arts at Ushaw.
1896: Publishes "Prayers for the People" with Burns & Oats as Revered Francis David Byrne.
1896: According to "The Veneration of Saint Agnes, V.M., "Mary's waiting maid"" Rev. F. D. Byrne renames "the church at West Hampstead, North-west
London" St. Agnes.
1889: F. D. Byrne places an advertisement with "The Spectator" in November, seeking work as a private secretary or agent, citing knowledge of European languages and "considerable European experience". He gives his age as "about 35". Presumably this add means he is no longer with the church, and no further works of his will be published with the title Rev.
1900: Credited alongside Lionel Strachey for the translation of Volume 23 of "Honoré De Balzac in Twenty-Five Volumes" published by Peter Fenelon Collier & Son.
1902: Graduates London University with a B.A. (Honours)
1904-1905: Commissioned to translate "The Golden Ass" and "The Law Concerning Draped Virginity" for Charles Carrington. The rights to the translation of "The Golden Ass" is sold to a london underground publisher known as the "Imperial Press". In a letter to "The Academy and literature" following their negative review (mostly a character assassination based on the presence of few typos) he writes that his translations had been published without his knowing and against his will in the current state, and that he had not been given the chance to correct the finished pages. (Still, looking past the occasional typo every now and then and some inconsistent formatting, all of which I'm fixing for the ebook, it is still a very good translation.)
1914: The final appearance of his name in my sources in 1914, where he wins a lawsuit: "Byrne v. Statist Company (1914) 1.K.B.622.". The fact that this law suit constitutes a precedence in UK law the details are fairly easily available. I won't bore you with the details, but important for our story here is that it confirms that in 1914 he was a journalist with the "Financial Times". His switch, somewhere between 1905 and 1914 from translator to journalist would probably explain why there are no more known translations of his.

That's it. In other words all I've managed to get from my 20 or so hours is that the man was alive in 1878, and presumably some 15 years before that, and that he was still alive in 1914. My conclusion must be that the work probably is not yet in the PD in life+70 territories, but sadly given the lack of a date of death, assuming as one must, a potential life-span of at least 120 years, it will be another half a century before we can be sure if it really is PD in life+70 areas. Sadly, this is a state this work probably shares with multitudes of lesser known authors.

[Nate the great]

I found something:
http://records.ancestry.com/David_By...x?pid=52619146

Or this:
http://records.ancestry.com/Results....David&ln=Byrne

Don't kick yourself too hard; this happens a lot.

[DiapDealer]

If he graduated college in 1878 at 21-ish, that would make him around 104 years old (give or take) in 1961 (which should be the cut-off death-date for life+50 countries).

Not evidence by any means, but still... He was probably conceivably much older than 21—depending on what kind of degree—but certainly not (much) younger.

[Orusaka]

Thanks for the helpful replies, guys.

@Nate the great:
I had seen those records before, but some more digging around now, I managed to find some other records that make me fairly sure I've nailed this finally. He seems to have been born about 1861, according to the 1901 England census, and this entry makes me fairly certain that the Francis David Byrne who has a recorded death in 1927 to be the same person. One the main problems I had in my research on him was simply finding out whether the many records of his name that I found referred to the same person, or whether there might be more than one Francis David Byrne. I feel fairly confident now though that I can claim his lifespan to have been 1861-1927. I guess the uncertain date in the census would explain why he advertised himself as being about 35 in 1899. I suppose it must have been common at the time to not know one's exact year of birth. In other words, PD for all.

@DiapDealer: He actually matriculated college in 1878, and as the records that I found just now show, he would have been 17 at the time.

[DiapDealer]

Oops! I always forget that matriculated means registered. Such a big, fancy word for something so relatively meaningless compared to graduating college (which is much harder to do).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Orusaka

In other words, PD for all.

Not PD for all - eg, not PD in Mexico, which has a "life+100 years" copyright term. However, certainly PD in "life+70" countries, which accounts for the majority.

[sonofpendragon]

And it also depends if the works in question were released in the form being copied now, while he was still alive. It's often overlooked that a work finished but never published until after the death of the writer has a straightforward run re copyright for 70 years or whatever the country's standard is.

[Orusaka]

@HarryT: I was not aware that there were countries with longer terms than life+70, so thank you for bringing that to my attention.

@sonofpendragon: I will forgive you for not reading my entire wall of text, but if you had you would have learned that it was published while he was still alive. I do, however, agree that it's worth pointing out the different terms posthumous and/or unpublished works are subject to.

[DrNefario]

If Mexico also has the rule of the shorter term, then since it is out of copyright in its country of origin (first published in the uk which is death+70) it should still be okay.