Public Domain in 2010

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That sounds hopeful, then. Thanks .

Harry, here is the relevant law (unless there is something in the Canadian Gazette, a catch-all for minor law changes).


Anonymous and pseudonymous works of joint authorship

6.2 Where the identity of all the authors of a work of joint authorship is unknown, copyright in the work shall subsist for whichever of the following terms ends earlier:

(a) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year, and

(b) a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the making of the work and a period of seventy-five years following the end of that calendar year,

but where, during that term, the identity of one or more of the authors becomes commonly known, copyright shall subsist for the life of whichever of those authors dies last, the remainder of the calendar year in which that author dies, and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year.


and

Work made in the course of employment

(3) Where the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright, but where the work is an article or other contribution to a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, there shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be deemed to be reserved to the author a right to restrain the publication of the work, otherwise than as part of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical.


So, in Canada, it seems that there is no special add-on for "works-for-hire" term length.

Therefore, for the Lester Dent Doc Savages (and those ghosts who died before 1960) there are 3 (three) different ways of looking at the copyright under Canadian law.

Work by author - Life + 50 (The fact that Lester Dent is now known to have written most of the Doc Savages (by individual title) could trigger this one). That timer goes off Jan 1, 2010, a few days from now.

Work for hire - Falls under Anonymous and Pseudonymous works. There is no separate length definition for works for hire. The hirer owns the copyright. Therefore -

1. It's length is the combination of fifty years after publication (plus the rest of the year it was published in) AND 75 years after the time it was written (plus the rest of the year it was written in).

That would be 2010 - 75 or 1935. That means all Doc Savages written before 1935, which is basically the years 1933 and 1934. (technically some would be published in early 1935 that may have been written in late 1934, but that's not worth the bother to tack down IMHO).

Now the "end earlier" clause just above the quote may make all of them PD under the 50 years from publication section, I'm just being maximally pessimistic.

None of this would keep Conde' Nast from sueing, using the chilling effect of a lawsuit to force the takedown that they would not be legally entitled to. Maybe if you could get EFF or a similar organization to pay for a defense....

[chlorine]

For us in Europe, it's life +70, so authors who died in 1939 become public domain today.

From the site indicated by kwjones:
Heywood Broun
Ethel M Dell
Ford Madox Ford
Zane Grey
Kyōka Izumi
Okamoto Kido
Joseph Roth
S S van Dine
W B Yeats

All unknown by me, except Yeats.
Van Dine seems to have writtern some nice mistery novels though, which are available thanks to HarryT:
link for the mobipocket version