Public Domain Day 2016 in the UK: A Special Day

[Belladonna]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So... Sherlock Holmes is not in PD in the UK at this point in time, as Conan Doyle died in 1930?

Arthur Conan Doyle's works entered public domain in the United Kingdom in 2000, according to Sherlockian.net.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A pretty fundamental requirement for humour is that it should be humorous.

Haven't you repeatedly told people on MobileRead that you don't have a sense of humor?

...

Anyway, I thought it was humorous.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by murg

That's ok. Just run the Dutch through Google Translate, and you're good to go.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So... Sherlock Holmes is not in PD in the UK at this point in time, as Conan Doyle died in 1930?

Umm... no. Sherlock Holmes entered the UK public domain on 1st January 1981, fifty years after the death of Conan Doyle.

They gain a restored copyright in the UK on 1st January 1996 (or perhaps a few months before - I'm uncertain as to exactly when the 1995 act came into force).

They then became public domain again in the UK on 1st January 2001, 70 years after Conan Doyle's death.

Any work that gained a restored copyright due to the 1995 act fell into the public domain again at some point between 1996 and 1st January 2015. They are all now in the public domain in the UK.

On 1st January 2016, the UK will gain the first public domain works that have never been in the public domain in the UK before.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So... Sherlock Holmes is not in PD in the UK at this point in time, as Conan Doyle died in 1930?

How do you reach that conclusion? Certainly Conan Doyle is in the public domain; 1930 is more than 70 years ago.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Belladonna

Arthur Conan Doyle's works entered public domain in the United Kingdom in 2000, according to Sherlockian.net.

Sherlockian.net is a little imprecise. They say "expired in Canada in 1980" which is not quite true. The copyright expired in Canada when the first second of 1st January 1981 arrived.

They also say "in the United Kingdom expired at the end of the year 2000" which is similarly not quite true for the same reason.

Copyright in life+ countries exists until the end of the year of the 50th/70th/whatever anniversary of the death.

[Belladonna]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Copyright in life+ countries exists until the end of the year of the 50th/70th/whatever anniversary of the death.

I am aware.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Belladonna

Arthur Conan Doyle's works entered public domain in the United Kingdom in 2000, according to Sherlockian.net.

Originally Posted by HarryT

How do you reach that conclusion? Certainly Conan Doyle is in the public domain; 1930 is more than 70 years ago.

When I wrote that post, I was thinking that copyright just got extended by 20 years. It did, but only for authors who had just entered public domain very shortly before the rule change. Conan Doyle entered public domain about 15 years earlier, so he would have been out of PD for about 5 years.

I wouldn't even be surprised to hear on december 28th that copyright will be extended retroactively to Life+100 or something... taking something such as Sherlock Holmes out of copyright again for another 15 years.

Still, if everything stays as it is now, I'll probably still be alive when Tolkien will hit PD, which would be on januari 1 2044...

[HarryT]

That's right. Authors who died in 1926 were only out of the public domain for one year; those who died in 1944 were out for the maximum of 19 years. So Conan Doyle was out of the public domain for 5 years, if I've got my maths right.

[murg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's right. Authors who died in 1926 were only out of the public domain for one year; those who died in 1944 were out for the maximum of 19 years. So Conan Doyle was out of the public domain for 5 years, if I've got my maths right.

Not that the authors that have died really care about this now.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by murg

Not that the authors that have died really care about this now.

Very good point. There's a fascinating interview from the early '70s with German author Arno Schmidt. He is furious that his book Zettel's Traum has been pirated and goes on a long rant against book piracy. So he is as outspoken a defender of copyright as you will find; and in the same interview he declares that he thinks copyright shouldn't last any longer than twenty years after the author's death. So the other fifty years are for the industry. Yay.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by murg

That's ok. Just run the Dutch through Google Translate, and you're good to go.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

LOL. I *think* that remark was an attempt at humor

I think you are right here Katsunami, but regardless of that - there ARE people out there maintaining such a belief. I've met some of them - no joke. And as I'm a translator myself you might imagine that I'm not exactly sure whether to laugh or to cry when exposed to such epic levels of ignorance.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

I think you are right here Katsunami, but regardless of that - there ARE people out there maintaining such a belief. I've met some of them - no joke. And as I'm a translator myself you might imagine that I'm not exactly sure whether to laugh or to cry when exposed to such epic levels of ignorance.

Can you imagine what fun it is to help a German teenager with their English essay created by running a German text through Google Translate (either the whole text or word by word - there are two distinct schools), and the kid smiling indulgently while this old analog age fart is trying to explain what is wrong about that?

For the record: Anne Frank wrote in German, not in Dutch.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

For the record: Anne Frank wrote in German, not in Dutch.

Thanks - I wasn't sure, which is why I put a question mark after it.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks - I wasn't sure, which is why I put a question mark after it.

You were right, actually. She did write in Dutch. I had always assumed she wrote in German, the family being German and having fled to Amsterdam from the Nazis.