Posted by Tim Johns on April 17, 2000 at 13:28:29 from wes75.bham.ac.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Ed Kiser's typed texts posted by Robert Hill on April 14, 2000 at 16:06:36:
The current copyright limit under UK law is 70 years from
the death of the author (ie AR will not become public domain until (2037)
and under US law 75 years after the date of publication, providing the
copyrights have been renewed by his executors (as AR's copyrights have
been renewed). This leads to the the anomalous situation that under
American law Gutenberg can publish on the Internet The Crisis in Russia
and 6 Weeks in Russia in 1919, while that publication still
infringes AR's copyright under British law. Unless the anomaly is corrected,
it means that in 2005 Swallows and Amazons will become public domain
in the USA but not in the UK, with the other books in the series following year
by year.
On a related matter, it was nice to see a reference to the excellent
On-line Books Page. The OLBP already has links to texts (by Slocum, Knight,
and Baring-Gould, all well out of copyright) from the Literary Pages of the Arthur
Ransome site: to those will be added REAL SOON NOW (ie as soon as I've got all
the pictures scanned in) E.F. Knight's 'Small Boat Sailing'.