For those not in the US - HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!

[Greg Anos]

Yes, it's that day.



Happy Public Domain day.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Yes, it's that day.



Happy Public Domain day.

So who died in 1943 (1963 for Australia) ?

[SouthernSun]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

So who died in 1943 (1963 for Australia) ?

Plenty!

1943 and 1963.

[HarryT]

Authors who died in 1943:

Stephen Vincent Benét
Ridgwell Cullum
E M Delafield
Hans Heinz Ewers
R Austin Freeman
Elinor Glyn
Radclyffe Hall
Edward Heron-Allen
W W Jacobs
Eric Knight
A Merritt
Beatrix Potter
Perley Poore Sheehan

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

So who died in 1943 (1963 for Australia) ?

No, Australia gets no new PD books this year.

[Fbone]

Laura Elizabeth Howes Richards also passed in 1943. She wrote mostly children's books and poetry. She won the 1917 Pulitzer for a biography. She wrote over 90 books.

What I find funny is she published her first children's book in 1878. So that means it was in copyright for 135 years in the life+70 countries. I wonder if that is a modern day record.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Laura Elizabeth Howes Richards also passed in 1943. She wrote mostly children's books and poetry. She won the 1917 Pulitzer for a biography. She wrote over 90 books.

What I find funny is she published her first children's book in 1878. So that means it was in copyright for 135 years in the life+70 countries. I wonder if that is a modern day record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_E._Richards

I think you need to choose a non-US candidate since her US copyrights for all her pre-1923 books have expired there long since and therefore (I think) in most or all of the current Life+70 countries. Also the British Copyright Act that gave the UK Life+50 was only passed in 1906 so her very earliest books may never have had a UK copyright.

Experts in round the world copyright laws may now laugh and confute me.

[grumbles]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, Australia gets no new PD books this year.

But Aldous Huxley enters public domain in Canada!

[crich70]

Originally Posted by grumbles

But Aldous Huxley enters public domain in Canada!

It's a brave new world.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_E._Richards

I think you need to choose a non-US candidate since her US copyrights for all her pre-1923 books have expired there long since and therefore (I think) in most or all of the current Life+70 countries. Also the British Copyright Act that gave the UK Life+50 was only passed in 1906 so her very earliest books may never have had a UK copyright.

Experts in round the world copyright laws may now laugh and confute me.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've read a lot about this, from lots of sources, including the original acts.

Immediately before the 1906 Act, British copyright was for 50 years from publication or life (whichever was longer).

Whether works of a US author that are out of copyright in the US are out of copyright in another country depends on whether that country's copyright laws follow the rule of the shortest term. The UK did, then didn't, and now do again. This makes working out whether a work that's out of copyright in the US is out of copyright in the UK tricky, as it depends exactly when the US copyright ran out.

UK didn't follow the rule of the shortest term from November 5, 1956 until 1996. So any US work my a US author where the copyright expired on 1st January 1956 or earlier is also out of copyright in the UK. No works have fallen out of copyright in the US since 1996, and won't until 1st January 2019, so the fact that the rule of the shorter term is in force again won't become interesting for another five year.

If Laura E. Richards' US copyrights were renewed, only her works from before 1900 would have been out of copyright in the UK before this year. Any work she published from 1900 to 1928 which did not have it's copyright renewed would also have been out of copyright.

Now, of course, all her works are out of copyright in the UK.

But in the US, any of her works published in 1923 and later which had their copyright renewed are still in copyright, and will be until 1st January 2019 at least.

It's a shame it's so complex, but there we are. I wish we could go back to 50 years after publication or life of the author, whichever is longer.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by Fbone

What I find funny is she published her first children's book in 1878. So that means it was in copyright for 135 years in the life+70 countries. I wonder if that is a modern day record.

I have to offer a candidate:
German WW I hero and author Ernst Jünger published his first work, his war memories "In Stahlgewittern" (Storms of Steel) in 1920. He died in 1998 at the age of 103, therefore - assuming the law stays as it is - "In Stahlgewittern" will enter into the public domain in 2068, 148 years after its first publication.

As a side note: I recently read an interview with former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the UK's "Guardian". They reported that their first interview with Schmidt was 81 years (!) ago, when he was an exchange student in Manchester at the age of 14. That also has to be a record.

[radius]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Authors who died in 1943:

A Merritt

Is this Abraham Merritt the SF writer (of The Moon Pool I think?)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by radius

Is this Abraham Merritt the SF writer (of The Moon Pool I think?)

Yes. He died August 21, 1943 according to Wikipedia.