by Sandra Fikes

Created on: March 09, 2010

Copyright laws differ from country to country, so I strongly suggest that each individual check with their local copyright offices for the laws of their country and how it applies to their work.

 In the United States, where I live, the laws are a bit complex. The Berne Convention (article 2,2) dictates that a work is copyrighted when it has been fixed in some material form. -

http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/2.html

 In Circular 15a, http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf, the United States Copyright Office explains the duration of copyright under the copyright act of 1976, as amended June 26, 1992, and October 27, 1998.

 For those creating current work and seeking to discern the length of copyright it will hold, Circular 15a states that the current copyright laws for works created after January 1, 1978 the United States “...adopts the basic “life-plus-seventy” system already in effect in most other countries...”

 What does this mean for the artist? When you create a work on a tangible form the work is immediately, upon being set in tangible form, granted protection for the life of the creator plus seventy years following the author's death.

 What if it was a collaborative work of two or more authors? Then the copyright lasts to the life of the survivor, plus seventy years following their death.

 So, for example:

 Bea Author and Irma Writer write a book together. If Irma were to pass away after only one year, and Bea were to live for twenty years after the book was written, then the copyright of their created work would still be in effect until seventy years after Bea passed away. For a total of 90 years after it had been first created.

 If both Bea and Irma passed away in a car accident within days of having created the work, then the work would be copyrighted for seventy years.

» Note that... «

♦ The law states that a copyright will remain in effect through to the end of the year in which the copyright expires. So if a copyright seems as though it would expire on July 17 of the current year, it would actually not expire until December 31st of that year.

♦ Work that was published or copyrighted prior to January 1, 1964 and included a notice of copyright, or registered in unpublished form prior to January 1, 1964, had to be renewed during the 28th year of their first term of copyright in order for them to maintain a full 95-year term of protection.

♦ Work that was originally copyrighted between January 1, 1964 and December 31, 1977 are exempt from the need of a first term or a renewal registration to be protected by copyright for the 28-year original term and the 67-year renewal term.

♦ Copyrights that were in their second term on January 1, 1978, were automatically extended, up to a maximum of 95 years, without the need for further renewal.

♦ And work that has already entered into the public domain cannot be protected under the 1976 law, or under the amendments of 1992 and 1998. There are no procedures in the acts for restoring protection to any work that has, for any reason, lost its copyright.

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