[pd-discuss] Copyright on unpublished or recently-published works from long-dead authors

Tue Dec 15 19:47:23 UTC 2015

Hello,

I have a question regarding copyright on unpublished or recently-published
works from long-dead authors, which I was hoping the list might be able to
shed some light on.

The scenario involves an author who died in the 17th-century. He put pen to
paper and created a poem, but it was never published in his lifetime. In
the 1930s the manuscript is discovered in some long-forgotten draw and then
published- in the UK, in 1939. And then republished in a few collections
since.

I know that public domain laws vary around the world, so I guess I'm
thinking about the US and the EU as two main regions it would be
interesting to know about.

So far I've gathered that, for unpublished works:
- in the US the copyright  is "life of the author + 70 years"
- in the UK until 31/12/2039 (which is absolutely ridiculous!).

For the work of my scenario outlined above (first published in 1939),
things are less clear. I can't see anything clear in what I've read. Would
anyone be able to help out with this? Or point me to some a good source
which would tell me?

I was also wondering, in the case of the totally unpublished work, about
who actually owns the copyright. Say there is a written manuscript penned
in 1650 by a Mr. Joe Bloggs. In the US he'd be out of copyright, but in the
UK, not until 2039. If Joe Bloggs has no discernible estate as such then
who actually owns the copyright? Would one be able to publish this work
(for the first time) without permission? If not, who is one meant to get
permission from? Is the library or archive that holds this manuscript in
some way involved?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give,

All the best,

Adam.

--

Adam Green

Editor-in-Chief, The Public Domain Review <http://publicdomainreview.org/>

@PublicDomainRev <https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev>
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