On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 19:25:31 -0600 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
>
>
> Jim Farmelant wrote:
> >
> > Nearly seventy years after its original publication,
>
> When does copyright expire under present (idiotic) law?
>
> Carrol
>
>
Going to the government site http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html we are told that for works created prior to 1978:
"Under the law in effect before 1978, copyright was secured either on the date a work was published with a copyright notice or on the date of registration if the work was registered in unpublished form. In either case, the copyright endured for a first term of 28 years from the date it was secured. During the last (28th) year of the first term, the copyright was eligible for renewal. The Copyright Act of 1976 extended the renewal term from 28 to 47 years for copyrights that were subsisting on January 1, 1978, or for pre-1978 copyrights restored under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), making these works eligible for a total term of protection of 75 years. Public Law 105-298, enacted on October 27, 1998, further extended the renewal term of copyrights still subsisting on that date by an additional 20 years, providing for a renewal term of 67 years and a total term of protection of 95 years."
So under current law, so it looks like there is at least another quarter-century before Hook's book can enter the public domain, assuming that no new laws get passed in the mean time which further extend copyright protection. The tendency in recent years has been to extend copyright protections further and further.
Jim F.
________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com