Is it too soon to digress? Don’t muddle High Toast with High Treason; the former an agreeably astringent snuff but the latter is also to be taken seriously. In ‘the good old days’, the existence of which is very doubtful, the usual punishment for dabbling in the latter was hanging, drawing and quartering.
Now I must admit to a small degree of subterfuge. In order to grip your blood-thirsty attention, I have not been entirely honest about the content of today’s post. If you knew I was going to unravel the complexities of international copyright law you’d head for the hills shouting ‘yikes, gemme outta ‘ere’.
For ages it has been a niggle. When does stuff come out of copyright? A few shrewd publishers have the dates in their diaries. Well, to slightly, only slightly, simplify here’s the scoop. Let’s use PG Wodehouse as an example. In the Seychelles all Plum’s work has been out of copyright since 2000, twenty-five years after he died. There is not a big book-buying population in the Seychelles so this is irrelevant. The US takes a different approach; work stays under copyright until ninety-five years after its first publication in the US. So this year all Plum’s work published in 1924 is free of copyright shackles. Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen stays under wrappers until 2069.
By the way, you may wonder what is the significance of being out of copyright. I think the nub is that work can be published, free, online. A secondary aspect is that it can be parodied, pastiched and generally mucked around. My view is that it is an honour for an author to be parodied, pastiched, etc.
In Canada the rule is simple. Copyright lasts for fifty years after the author’s death – so 2025. In the UK the rules have changed but, as they are now, copyright ends seventy years after the author’s death – so 2045. This applies to all members of the EU so there may be a post-Brexit change in the UK. Isn’t that interesting?
Now back to High Treason. William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, was the last for the long drop when he was hanged. Of course today the maximum penalty for treason is mere life imprisonment. Though treason still consists of violating the sovereign’s eldest son’s wife – makes you think, eh?
Back to snuff. I’ve found my tabatière and its a useful launch pad.If you’d like to find yours here are the directions.
Meanwhile, do not adjust your set, lie back and think of Brexit.
https://youtu.be/rpo0itewmSQ
Minor correction regarding US copyright law: Copyrights last through the end of the year (that makes it unnecessary to specify the month and date of original publication). So items published in 1924 fell into US public domain at the close of the year 2019, not at the beginning of or during the year.
Also, this only applies to older works, specifically those which had been properly renewed so that they were in copyright on January 1, 1978 when the 1976 Act went into force. Works created in the US in 1978 and later fall under the same Berne Convention rules as in the UK — protected until the end of the year seventy years after the death of the author.