Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
The very nature of copyright, which continues in effect for some period after the death of the author, ensures that royalties continue to go to an estate. The limiting time is the time of the copyright. The estate can never be fully wound-up while it is still entitled to income, though I suppose the entitlement to the particular copyright or the income from particular copyrights could be given to a particular person under the will or by agreement amongst the beneficiaries. But the rights attaching to the copyright will still belong to the estate or someone inheriting until it expires.
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The copyright in Germany (and in all other countries with a "life+70" copyright term) on Goebbel's works expires on 1st Jan 2016 (because he died in 1945), but because US copyright law does not implement the "rule of the shorter term" (the consideration that if a work is out of copyright in the country of its initial publication, it's also considered to be out of copyright in another country), it will continue to be protected by US copyright for many more years.