Re: Copyrights?
SCHRAMMR@wlsvax.wvnet.edu
Thu, 15 Feb 1996 21:45:49 -0500 (EST)
This may be a matter of talking about something I know little about but
about five years ago I asked our reference librarian to find me a copy
of the copyright law pertaining to images (photographs). The law was
recently changed to the lifetime of the maker plus so many years ( I forget
how many). But I was surprised to find that a lot of images which were
copywritten under the old law are now in the public domain. The way the
law was written, it effectively meant that due to the limitations of the
copyright, under the old law, any copyright for an image prior to 1921
has now expired. At least that is the way I read it. You may want to
check this out yourself or maybe someone on the list knows more about this.
I believe the old law only permitted a limited number of renewals of the
copyright. 1921 comes up when you count backwards from the date on the
new copyright law a number of years equal to the maximum number of years
one can hold a copyright on an image under the old law.
Bob