At 09:20 AM 11/16/2006, dhbailey wrote: >The new law went into effect on Jan. 1, 1999. The previous rewrite had >extended the length of copyrights to be total of 75 years, if it had >been renewed and so was still protected by copyright when the 1978 law >went into effect. So a work copyrighted in 1923, and properly extended >would have copyright extension until Dec.31, 1998 at 12:00midnight. The >new law went into effect a second later, at 12:01:01 Jan 1, 1999, so >those 1923 copyrights would have expired just before the new law went >into effect.
Sorry David, this is not correct. The effective date of the Sonny Bono act was 10/27/1998. (See <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#3-8>.) So any work copyrighted in 1923 and properly extended would have expired at the end of 1998, as you note, but has since been extended again by Sonny Bono, which took effect two months earlier.
To quote from the actual law: "Any copyright still in its renewal term at the time that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act becomes effective shall have a copyright term of 95 years from the date copyright was originally secured."
Aaron. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
