Quote:
Originally Posted by Little.Egret
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_E._Richards
I think you need to choose a non-US candidate since her US copyrights for all her pre-1923 books have expired there long since and therefore (I think) in most or all of the current Life+70 countries. Also the British Copyright Act that gave the UK Life+50 was only passed in 1906 so her very earliest books may never have had a UK copyright.
Experts in round the world copyright laws may now laugh and confute me.
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I don't claim to be an expert, but I've read a lot about this, from lots of sources, including the original acts.
Immediately before the 1906 Act, British copyright was for 50 years from publication or life (whichever was longer).
Whether works of a US author that are out of copyright in the US are out of copyright in another country depends on whether that country's copyright laws follow the rule of the shortest term. The UK did, then didn't, and now do again. This makes working out whether a work that's out of copyright in the US is out of copyright in the UK tricky, as it depends exactly when the US copyright ran out.
UK didn't follow the rule of the shortest term from November 5, 1956 until 1996. So any US work my a US author where the copyright expired on 1st January 1956 or earlier is also out of copyright in the UK. No works have fallen out of copyright in the US since 1996, and won't until 1st January 2019, so the fact that the rule of the shorter term is in force again won't become interesting for another five year.
If Laura E. Richards' US copyrights were renewed, only her works from before 1900 would have been out of copyright in the UK before this year. Any work she published from 1900 to 1928 which did not have it's copyright renewed would also have been out of copyright.
Now, of course, all her works are out of copyright in the UK.
But in the US, any of her works published in 1923 and later which had their copyright renewed are still in copyright, and will be until 1st January 2019 at least.
It's a shame it's so complex, but there we are. I wish we could go back to 50 years after publication or life of the author, whichever is longer.