Posted by John Wilson on January 23, 2001 at 13:34:07 from 203.96.26.98:
In Reply to: Re: I can't start a new thread, so I'm hijacking this one posted by Peter Hyland on January 12, 2001 at 20:45:04:
Peter H. (12 Jan) says that the copyright on Arthur Ransome’s works will expire in 2037, but I thought that copyright still ran for 50 years after the death of the author ie 1967 + 50 or to 2017 (actually to the end of the year, ie until 31st December 2017)?
In the discussion (via link Eldred vs Reno on Ian, 12 Jan) on American copyright law, Eric Eldred of Eldrich Press said that (paras 22, 31) the passing of the “Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998” added 20 years to copyright, ie 95 instead of 75 years from the date of publication. Hence “Racundra’s First Cruise” which he wanted to e-publish after the end of 1998 was now copyright until the end of 2018. But a Brittanica.com article on copyright said that in America (as elsewhere) copyright usually ran for 50 years after the death of the author. The 75 years from first publication rule only applied to anonymous works, pseudonymous works and works made for hire.
Can someone comment on current American copyright law for books by dead (and known) authors? With international (Berne, Geneva) copyright conventions, surely America would have the same copyright laws ie from the death of the author (not from date of publication). Although I think that in the thirties America was not a member of the international conventions, and AR would have had to get North American copyright by publishing separately in the USA or Canada.
Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland appears in the Sydney “Bulletin” of Jan 9th 2001 as co-editor with the late Rupert Hart-Davis of “The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (1999, Fourth Estate/Henry Holt). This includes 300 letters he found in 1962 which are not in earlier “Complete Letters...”. They are copyright to 2012, unlike the other letters from Oscar Wilde on which the copyright expired 50 years after his death in 1950. Amazon.com says that a new pb edition of “The Complete Letters..” is to come out this year, but it seems to be the earlier version edited by Merlin Holland’s father Vyvyan Beresford Holland. If so it will not include the extra letters.
PS: Amazon.com has a book by Arthur Ransome “Tontimundo y El Barco Volaror; Un Cuento Ruso” which turns out to be a Spanish translation by M. Negroni of “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship”.
PS: Both Mr Farland (CC) and Jim Turner (PP) had trouble getting the right number on their manual telephones when they were in a hurry, Jim because of the fire! Does anyone still have a working phone with a rotary dial? My mother still has one, plus a push-button extension. The number went from 48-960 (Wellington NZ, 1950s) to 78-508 to 788-508 to 478-8508.