http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html
Now, let's take a look at what the Berne people have to say:
First of all, regarding which laws apply to the work, the Berne Convention (Section 5) says :
"... the extent of protection, as well as the means of redress afforded to the author to protect his rights, shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the country where protection is claimed. "
That means that it doesn't matter how very British Miss Channer and her mat were, if the mat is copied in Canada, then Canadian copyright laws apply when considering whether or not an infraction has been committed. US laws apply in the US, and so on and so on. This matter is reinforced in other Sections of the convention in even plainer language.
Now, how long is the duration?
Under the Berne Convention (Section 7), "The term of protection granted by this Convention shall be the life of the author and fifty years after his death. " The same section goes on to explain that (1) countries do have the right to decided on a longer time or even a shorter time, but " In any case, the term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work. "
For US law, I took a look at http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/duration.html:
In the United States, anything published before 1923 has no copyright whatsoever; it doesn't matter when the author/creator died. For after 1923 the current copyright law is "if a work was published between 1923 to 1963, the copyright owner was required to have applied for a renewal term with the Copyright office. If they did not, the copyright expired and the work entered into the public domain. If they did apply for renewal, these works will have a 95 year copyright term and hence will enter into the public domain no sooner that 2018 (95 years from 1923). If the work was published between 1964 to 1977, there is no need to file for a renewal, and these works will automatically have a 95 year term."
So, what does this mean for us and our lace patterns? Well, if you live in the States, you can copy and republish and do whatever you want with anything that was published before 1923. After that date and before 1963 it becomes a bit dicier because you have to figure out whether or not the copyright was renewed. Personally, I bet it wasn't, but that's just me.
Now, what was protected? If Ruth Bean had someone copy an old pattern and copyrighted it, the more power to her. However, she just has copyright on the copy *she* made, not on Miss Channer's original. No one can ever have a copyright again on something whose copyright expires. So, as I said in my original posting, if you want to make your own copy based on your own rendering of a pre-1923 photo from a book published before 1923, and you live in the States, go ahead.
Adele North Vancouver, BC (west coast of Canada)
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