Thread: Interesting copyright question
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Old 09-25-2009, 11:18 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by ficbot View Post
I was reading something in Wikipedia the other day about the wife of former US president Ulysses S. Grant. Apparently, she died in 1902 but her personal memoirs were not discovered and published until 1975. So how would copyright on such a work operate? If you go 'life of the author plus x years' then it would be public domain almost from the moment of publication---1975 was already past life plus 50, and now we're well over life plus 100 years. But it was not published until 1975. So does the 'copyright clock' start there? If so, are there separate rules for this kind of situation to prevent the works from being tied up for centuries after the author is already deceased?
Rule of thumb: if it's worth a penny, it's copyrighted. Usually by someone totally unrelated to the author.
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