Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I would note, though, that the overwhelming majority of books in the US public domain are in the public domain because they were published prior to 1923, and all such books that were initially published in the US are also in the UK public domain because of an aspect of British copyright law called "the rule of the shorter term", which states that if a work is in the public domain in the country in which it was originally published, then it's also in the public domain in the UK, even if the standard British "life+70" copyright term would indicate otherwise. This means that, for example, all the books by American authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs which are in the public domain in the US are also in the UK public domain, even though Burroughs died in 1950.
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This is not accurate. Unfortunately, the UK didn't follow the rule of the shorter term from 5 November 1956 to 31st December 1995. So only US works that fell into the public domain before or after those dates are also public domain in the UK. And essentially no new works have fallen into the public domain from 1996 onwards.
There's a good look at this complicated issue
here
It is, however, true that the Edgar Rice Burroughs works that are public domain in the US are also public domain in the UK. But that's not due to the rule of the shorter term, it's because when they fell into the US public domain, the UK had a life+50 year copyright term, and that's what applies to the books in the UK. As it's been more than 50 years since Burroughs died, they're also public domain in the UK.
Since Burroughs died in 1950, in 2021, all Burroughs' works pass into the UK public domain, but some will remain copyright in the US.