Quote:
Originally Posted by Richwood
For fiction I think that 20 years w/o renewal is the way to go unless an item is kept continuously in print or available in electronic form. If popular enough to still be in print after 20 years then allow a single 20 year renewal. What percentage of fiction books or short stories remain in print for any where near that long? 1% or so maybe? The original version of "Lord Of The Rings" lost USA copyright due to not being published here and having too many British copies imported per copyright law at the time.
I remember as ACE Books printed an unauthorized version here circa 1967 or so. The first version I bought and read. The author revised things enough to get a new USA copyright and a contract with Ballantine as I recall for the "authorized edition".
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That wasn't exactly the case with LOTR. Tolkien didn't need to revise anything to get a US copyright, he simply had to print the books in the US. The original US version was actually printed in the UK and then bound in the US. Once he did that, he had the copyright. The Ballentine version did have an updated intro and revisions, but then again, each of the new edition of Lord of the Rings had revisions. Whither or not Ace's claim that their edition didn't violate copyright law never was decided in the courts. Ace reached a settlement with Tolkien, paid him money and withdrew their edition from the market after getting a lot of bad press.