As a short rule, the works of all authors who died in 1941 or before, are in the public domain in the life+70 countries like Australia. So, of your two examples Chesterton (1874-1936) and Shaw (1856-1950) the first one is in the public domain in Australia, the second not.
Another possibility is to check whether you find works of the authors in question in Project Gutenberg (Australia).
Our own library here generally follows the copyright law of Canada which is one of the life+50 countries. So you will find books here that you are - strictly speaking - not allowed to download because the authors are still in copyright in Australia.
Last edited by Billi; 05-27-2012 at 03:26 AM.
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