With respect to part of what Dave Bailey wrote:
The provisions on copyrights in works created and published before
1978 are complicated, but, as a general rule, the copyright in those
works will last 95 years. Anything first published in 1923 or earlier,
though, is in the public domain.
The second sentence quoted is generally true, though I think there are a
handful of exceptions even to that. There is, however, a significant
exception to the general rule that copyrights in works after 1923 and
before 1978 will have a duration of 95 years. The term of copyright on
items published during that period was 28 years. Those copyrights were
eligible for a single renewal, whose term was successively lengthened by
acts of congress, so that the effective period of copyright protection
on works which were copyright, and where the copyright was correctly
renewed is 95 years. However, the U.S. copyright office has reported
that half of all copyrights issued, which would have required renewal to
remain in force, were never renewed, so that those works are now in the
public domain.
There is another exception, whose significance is less clear. Copyright
in the U.S. is a civil matter; infringement can be pursued only by the
owner of the copyright. There is a group of copyrights where, even
though the copyright was properly renewed, the owner of the copyright
can no longer be located, or no longer exists. Only the holder of a
copyright can transfer it, so this becomes a question of the class of
the one, "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it,
does it make a sound?" More directly, if an item is copyrighted, but
there is no longer anyone who has the authority to assert copyright, or
pursue infringement, is the item still copyright?
ns
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