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Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
It doesn't look like the deal made Mexican shrink the duration of copyright there from 100 years to 70, but at least it didn't force the US and Canada to increase it to an outrageous 100 years, either.
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The US doesn't get forced when it comes to copyright. On January 1, 2019 books published in 1923 become public domain in the U.S., even if the author died, like Agatha Christie, more than fifty years later.
Perhaps the US Congress will once again save Canada's annual public domain day by failure to ratify, just as we did with the Trans Pacific Partnership.
P.S. There are some news articles claiming that Canada is taking on the same Life + 70 copyright rule as the U.S. This is mistaken, except as something planned for the very distant future. For the next 20 years, the agreement would take Public Domain Day away from Canada and keep it for the U.S. This is quite unfair to Canada, should it be ratified. (There may be good reasons to ratify, but not this.)
P.P.S. If Canada's parliament were to ratify with a signing statement that they won't be enforcing, in books only, anything past Life + 50, what would happen? Perhaps nothing! But only a country like the U.S. would have the conjoins to try that.