Help Needed!

Hi Everybody,We're trying to work out how long an author needs to have been dead before their work enters the public domain. On one hand, we've been told by the Arts Law Centre in Sydney that, according to the Australian Copyright Act of 1968, copyright exists in Australia for 50 YEARS after the death of the author or the first date of publication (whichever is the later). Moves to increase this to 70 years to bring us in line with Europe HAVE NOT YET GONE THROUGH!And it looks as though they may not...So, Barrie, Pinero, Maeterlinck, Pirandello and next year Shaw are all inthe public domain.On the other hand, I seem to remember an excellent (but then, aren't they all) editorial by David Crewes in a past Link reporting how the time period had been extended from 70 to 90 years. Consequently, just when he had made it into the public domain, J M Barrie's works were freely denied us for a further 20 years. (JM Barrie died in 1937.)How about Wilde, for instance? Does anyone know if Melville had to pay royalties on ";Ernest";?Is anybody out there? David? Norma? Trevor?JB

> I'm no expert, but I'd heard recently it was still 50 years.Check out what the Australian Copyright Council has to say.They have a couple of information sheets that are relevant:Putting on a concert, play or musicalWriters and CopyrightUnfortunately the information sheets are in PDF format and you'll need a PDF reader program to view and print them after they've downloaded. More details here .Please note too, that the sheets change regularly and they recommend you visit their website to find uptodate information.Their information on Writers and Copyright suggests that copyright only lasts 50 years after the death of the writer or first publication, whichever is later.However, the information is targetted at Australian writers and the protection afforded them by Australian law may differ from that provided by other countries to their own writers. So work by Australian writers may only be protected for 50 years, but work by other writers in the US and UK may be protected for 70, as has been suggested.Sounds pretty daft, but we are talking about the law ;)CheersGrant

Re: Help Needed!

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