On 6/20/00 5:16 PM, Corey Reid ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote
>If a company owns the copyright, then the copyright NEVER expires. That's
>why movies always say, "Such and such is the author of this work for
>copyright reasons". Those copyrights will not expire as long as the company
>remains a going concern.
>
>I very much doubt that Disney's "Snow White" will be public domain ever. If
>the Disney corporation owns the copyright, it won't.
The copyright term for business is as follows, under works made for hire:
Works Originally Created On or After January 1, 1978
A work that is created (fixed in tangible form for the first time)
on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the
moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for
the author's life plus an additional 70 years after the author's
death. In the case of "a joint work prepared by two or more authors
who did not work for hire," the term lasts for 70 years after the
last surviving author's death. For works made for hire, and for
anonymous and pseudonymous works (unless the author's identity is
revealed in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright
will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation,
whichever is shorter.
(from http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html)
However, given that the term of copyright keeps expanding as "important"
(read: money generating) works get closer to expiry, I think it is in
effect "forever". Frankly, retroactive copyright extension really SHOULD
violate the "Ex Post Facto laws" clause anyway.
--
Russ Taylor (http://www.cmc.net/~rtaylor/)
CMC Tech Support Manager
"Hoody hoo! How many hedge-ogres did I get?" -- Bob, KoDT
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