Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Can you give a specific example of a Shakespeare play that would not have been permitted under current copyright law? He took ideas from existing works, yes, but not actual "texts". Copyright does not protect ideas.
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Parts of hamlet from Histoires tragiques a translation but that would be covered by modern copyright law wikipedia dates it between 1563-1583 well within the 125ish years one can reasonably expect from something copyrighted by an adult today.
Romeo and Juliet, Giulietta e Romeo found in Historia novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti published in 1530 by Luigi da Porto. Source wikipeida.
In fact if you do some quick searches you'll see just about all of his work sourced and dated from earlier but not that much earlier works. Remember you can't copyright an idea but you can copyright a plot as long as it isn'ttoo general. West Side story changes more than just names and location, it adds music and racial tensions but it would still be infringment of Romeo and Juliet ahd been under copyright at the time.