[pd-discuss] Public Domain Calculator - James Bond books

Wed Dec 21 10:50:13 UTC 2011

Hi

I'm writing to this list because I think it is where the people behind
public domain calculator project
(http://outofcopyright.eu/calculator.html) hang out. Please let me
know if there's a better place to write to.

Firstly, I think the public domain calculator is a great project.
Thanks for building it :)

I thought I'd use it to work out the copyright status of Ian Fleming's
James Bond books. The question I really had problems with was this
one:

Is the work a literary, dramatic or musical work, an engraving or a
photograph whose author died before 1 January 1969 and which remained
unpublished until the 1 August 1989?

I found this hard to parse. Ian Fleming died before 1969, but the work
was published before 1989, so I answered "no" the first time, and this
returned a result that the work is in the public domain (or rather
"The examined rights have expired"), which I don't think can be true
(Ian Fleming died in 1964, which is only 47 years ago. Under the terms
of the 1995 Copyright regulations, which according to Wikipedia
granted extended copyright terms to all authors who died after 1925,
Fleming enjoys life plus seventy). When I answered "yes" the second
time I tried, I got the result I expected - that the work was still
protected.

Can anyone help me understand what's going on? Am I simply
understanding the question wrong?

Also, as a usability side note, I found the way the yes/no buttons
switched around really confusing.

Thanks in advance, warm wishes

Becky