Which authors will soon be public domain?

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I meant that the US seems to be uniquely extending copyright terms to prevent any new material from entering the public domain, largely (I understand) due to the lobbying of companies like Disney. I don't know of any other country which has done this. In pretty much every other country, new material enters the public domain, year on year, as one would expect it to.

I don't know about that. It looks like the EU raised copyright terms by 20 years in 1993, and the US in 1998. Also, the there's been heated lobbying by the music industry, especially in the UK, to extend the term for recordings, now that copyrights are starting to expire for the early rock & roll recordings.

In fact, it's even worse in the EU, because they retroactive restored copyright when they lengthened the term, whereas the US did not.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by corroonb

The first copyright law was for 14 years. Reasonable really.

When Don Quixote was first published (1605), it was granted a "royal privilege" (as was any other book legally published), meaning that only the author, or the publisher designed by him, had the right to print and sell the book. This privilege lasted 10 years.

That would be a printing patent, I guess.