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Old 04-06-2011, 06:46 AM   #5
JeremyR
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Join Date: Aug 2010
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I would vote for "50 years from publication or death of author; whichever comes last." myself.

The way it is now, at least in the US, you can learn so much about the early 20th Century up until 1923.

Then you just hit a wall (with a few exceptions). But there is so much history in the 30s and 40s that I think society as a whole is missing out on. The Great Depression, WW2, early days of racial equality movements.

Yeah, maybe .001% of that material is still commercially viable. But most of it isn't.

I understand wanting to protect the rights of authors. But most of them are doomed to obscurity. If anything, having free material (their older stuff) might actually boost sales of newer work.

Or they could issue authorized editions (Louis L'amour did this, many his early stories were PD, so he put out authorized collections with notes about the stories)
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