Copyright expiration of Hobbit and LOTR?
Front Desk
When does the copyright for the Hobbit and LOTR expire, and the works
become part of the public domain?
Bill Seurer
In article <4vkc1c$f...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, cz...@ruby.ils.unc.edu (Front Desk) writes:
|> When does the copyright for the Hobbit and LOTR expire, and the works
|> become part of the public domain?
|>
|>
Decades from now (if ever). See below.
From http://www.citi.net/GraceWeb/Admin/Copyright.html
Copyright Expiration
Copyright has gone under many twists and turns, and while the law at anyone time has always been pretty simple, the cumulative
effect of the changes have made the question of when a copyright expires quite complicated to answer.With this in mind, here is a
summary of copyright duration. Copyrights expire on December 31 of the expiration year.
In the US, works published before 1978 usually enter the public domain 75 years from the date copyright was first secured, usually
from the date of first publication.
In the US, works created in or since 1978 enter the public domain 50 years after the death of the author, if the author is a natural
person. Works created in or since 1978, created by a corporate author, enter the public domain 75 years after publication or 100
years after creation, whichever is first. Works created before 1978 but not published before that date are copyrighted as stated in
this paragraph, except that in no case will the copyright on a work not published prior to 1978 expire before December 31, 2002.
If a substantional number of copies were printed and distributed in the US without a copyright notice prior to March 1, 1989, the
work is in the public domain in the US.
Every time a substantially new edition is created, especially if it is a new translation or done by a new editor, a new work is created,
so you count from the creation of that edition, not from the creation of the original.
In the United Kingdom and a lot of other countries, the general rule is life of the author plus 50 years. Publication without a copyright
notice does not put a work in the public domain in most countries.
--
- Bill Seurer ID Tools and Compiler Development IBM Rochester, MN
Business: BillS...@vnet.ibm.com Home: BillS...@aol.com
NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl
In article <177EFA343S...@vm.amu.edu.pl>
NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl writes:
>In article <4vkc1c$f...@newz.oit.unc.edu>
>cz...@ruby.ils.unc.edu (Front Desk) writes:
>
>>When does the copyright for the Hobbit and LOTR expire, and the works
>>become part of the public domain?
>To my honest knowledge, British copyright extends 50 years after author's
>death, so Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
>Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lenghten it.
Of course I meant 2032. Sorry for my appailling lack of math skill.
GSN
NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl
In article <4vkc1c$f...@newz.oit.unc.edu>
cz...@ruby.ils.unc.edu (Front Desk) writes:
>When does the copyright for the Hobbit and LOTR expire, and the works
>become part of the public domain?
death, so Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lenghten it.
Sigurd Erland
>
>To my honest knowledge, British copyright extends 50 years after author's
>death, so Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
>Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lenghten it.
Hooray!!! Tolkien is alive (like Elvis), and won't die until 2002.
Wonderful, where did you get that information? You've got a direct
link to Mandos or something?
Sigurd Erland (Norwegian Tolkien fan)
Vaughn Herbert Seward
It has been posted (with slight editing for grammar and spelling):
>
To my honest knowledge, British copyright extends 50 years after the
author's death, so the Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lengthen it.
>
and a reply noted:
>
Hooray!!! Tolkien is alive (like Elvis), and won't die until 2002.
Wonderful, where did you get that information? You've got a direct link
to Mandos or something?
Sigurd Erland (Norwegian Tolkien fan)
>
Of course, J. R. R. Tolkien passed away during the 1970s; international
copyright expires 75 years after the author's death, so we're looking
at, say, 2047 if Prof. Tolkien passed away in 1972.
However, as many Tolkien fans will recall, at one time (no longer true
since the U.S. signed the Berne convention, *except for American
authors(!!!)*) if too many copies of a work, published in English
outside the U.S., are imported before that work's first U.S.
publication, the work became ineligible for U.S. copyright. And this
happened to the first edition of LOTR (causing the infamous Ace
paperback edition); *NOT* to the revised edition which is currently
available in bookstores.
Also, under the old U.S. copyright law, copyright had to be renewed
about 30-plus years after publication. That's why some of the Burroughs
books are available in Project Gutenberg etexts, although ERB only
passed away in the early 1960s. A computer magazine actually included
them on a cover CD-ROM with its first issue; although copies were sold
on newstands across Canada, I never heard of anyone suing.
John J. G. Savard
Klaus Ole Kristiansen
sew...@netcom.ca(Vaughn Herbert Seward) writes:
>However, as many Tolkien fans will recall, at one time (no longer true
>since the U.S. signed the Berne convention, *except for American
>authors(!!!)*) if too many copies of a work, published in English
>outside the U.S., are imported before that work's first U.S.
>publication, the work became ineligible for U.S. copyright. And this
>happened to the first edition of LOTR (causing the infamous Ace
>paperback edition); *NOT* to the revised edition which is currently
>available in bookstores.
That is very much open to doubt. The importer did not report the
import to the proper office, to hide that they had imported more
than was legal. Ace in their inscrutable wisdom then decided that
this lack of reporting meant that the work was not copyrighted.
They were most likely wrong, but it was never tried in court.
Klaus O K
NASK...@vm.amu.edu.pl
In article <504b23$7...@tor-nn1-hb0.netcom.ca>
sew...@netcom.ca(Vaughn Herbert Seward) writes:
>It has been posted (with slight editing for grammar and spelling):
if you quote it?
>>
>To my honest knowledge, British copyright extends 50 years after the
>author's death, so the Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
>Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lengthen it.
>>
>
>and a reply noted:
>
>>
>Hooray!!! Tolkien is alive (like Elvis), and won't die until 2002.
>Wonderful, where did you get that information? You've got a direct link
>to Mandos or something?
>Sigurd Erland (Norwegian Tolkien fan)
Sigurd Erland
>>>
>>To my honest knowledge, British copyright extends 50 years after the
>>author's death, so the Tolkien Estate would lose its rights in 2052.
>>Pretty long time to wait anyway, and they'll probably lengthen it.
>>>
>>
>>and a reply noted:
>>
>>>
>>Hooray!!! Tolkien is alive (like Elvis), and won't die until 2002.
>>Wonderful, where did you get that information? You've got a direct link
>>to Mandos or something?
>
>I wonder that you didn't notice the erratum I send right away!
>
Hey, don't get so worked up, man. I just simply couldn't resist it
(you've got a sense of humour, haven't you), and first after I had
posted the reply, I noticed your correction. By the way, your
correction wasn't registered on the NNTP-server I use until 3 days
after your first (incorrect) post, which isn't what I call right away.
Sigurd Erland
Wayne G. Hammond
Putting it as simply as possible (for the history of Tolkien's U.S.
copyrights is a tangled web): Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien's American
hardcover publisher, imported more British-printed copies of some
of his works than allowed under U.S. copyright law as it then
stood. They did not try to hide anything, as copyright records are
public. They imported too many copies not out of ignorance, but
because they could sell them -- and in this sense, at least, were
serving Tolkien's interests very well. Ace Books very likely
noticed that too many copies had been imported of _LR_, but their
argument was that the copyright statements printed in the
Houghton Mifflin copies were not sufficient to give copyright
protection. Since Houghton Mifflin refused, for various reasons,
to grant them a paperback license, Ace went ahead with their
"pirate" edition. The authorized, revised Ballantine paperback
edition was published in response, though in fact Tolkien's
revisions were already being made when the Ace edition appeared.
That case was settled out of court (the Ace edition was ultimately
withdrawn under intense public pressure). But the American
copyright of _LR_ was ultimately settled in court, a few years ago,
when another publisher challenged it. The judge in that case ruled
in very clear English that Tolkien had not lost copyright in the U.S.,
though there had been some irregularities in meeting the letter of
the law. Since then, the GATT treaty and the corresponding
Implementation Act in the U.S. have wiped away any doubts that
Tolkien's U.S. copyrights are valid.
Wayne Hammond
Wayne.G...@williams.edu