Overview of Public Domain Works after Copyright Termination

 

Films and sound recordings, as well as literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and architectural works, are all shielded by copyright legislation. Also included in the definition of "literary works" under Indian Copyright law are books, computer programmes, compilations, and tables. The law, on the other hand, does not base whether or not a piece of work is in the public domain on whether or not it is accessible to the whole public or a segment of the general public.

Contrarily, whether or not a piece of work is protected by a copyright determines whether or not it is in the public domain. (The copyright legislation doesn't define the phrase "public domain"). Only when copyright is removed from protected information does it become public domain. The most frequent instance of this is when the copyright term pertaining to the content expires. An outline of what transpires once a creative work's copyright expires will be given in this blog.

Why Copyrights are not indefinitely granted?

It is believed that both the act of creating art and other creative forms, as well as their enjoyment, is crucial to human life. Copyrights were created as a result of the challenging trade-off between paying writers and enhancing public life by facilitating access to art. Hence, copyrights were never designed to be vehicles for the creator's indefinite monetization and commercialization, as they only let them to make money from their work for a fixed number of years.

 

The development of the Internet has also altered public perception and significantly altered the landscape of copyright issues. Major web companies like Google and Wikipedia have actively opposed the extension of copyright.

U.S. Scenario

As of 2019, all American publications made before 1924 have lost their copyright. In other words, you may use the work in the United States without permission if it was published in the country before January 1, 1924. Some guidelines and dates are applicable regardless of whether the work was written by a single author, a group of writers, or an employee (a work made for hire). No new works were added to the public domain between 1998 and 2018 as a result of legislation that was established in 1998. 1923-published publications won't be accessible in 2019. The expiration date for works published in 1924 is 2020, and so on.

The copyright laws underwent substantial changes when the original Mickey Mouse copyright was due to expire in 1976. The amendment extended the author's lifetime plus fifty years after death for works copyrighted prior to 1978, and expanded the duration for corporate works to 75 years.

If a single author created a piece of writing and it was published after 1977, the copyright will not expire until 70 years have passed since the author's passing. If a piece of writing was created by several authors and published after 1977, it will remain in effect until the last surviving author passes away, which will be 70 years from that point. The length was once again altered by the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (hereafter referred to as the "CTEA"), which offered a retroactive extension of the copyright period. The protection was extended for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publishing, whichever came first. It also extended the protection to the author's life plus 70 years. The Act prohibited the dissemination of works made after 1923 into the public domain until 2019 or later, depending on the date of creation.

Indian Scenario

Depending on the kind of content, copyright in India often expires sixty years after the author's passing or sixty years after the work is published. As a result, after the time expires, the material is made available to the general public. (However, if content that is in the public domain is changed, the amended version might not always be in the public domain. Therefore, a translation of a piece of public domain material could not be included in the public domain.

It is obvious that copyright will be transferred to the owner's heirs or legal representatives after the owner's passing since copyright is a resource that has changed over the years to become more of a conventional property in terms of its holder's rights. When a legal representative or successor gains possession of a copyright, such rights are entirely under their authority. He may utilise it for any monetary benefit up till the protection period ends.

Yet unless the original author has also given up his moral rights, financial exploitation like licencing and assignment must be done in his or her name. Because of this, the original author is given due credit for his rights throughout the copyright protection period.

Public information or publicly accessible content is not regarded as falling under the public domain by virtue of just being accessible to the public. Normally, reusing publically accessible material would require a licence unless

 

(a) The information was in the public domain as defined by copyright laws,

 

(b) The applicable statute expressly excluded unauthorised reproduction from accusations of infringement;

 

(c) The copyright doctrine permitted unauthorised reproduction through concepts like faire use (though Indian recognition of the doctrine is debatable); scènes à faire; or merger, which may either deny copyrightability or serve as defences against accusations of infringement.

In an email to the HRD Ministry in 2008, Yash Raj and the FICCI asked that the copyright term be increased to 95 years, as it was in the CTEA. In the 2010 Copyright Amendment Act, the government appreciated the ideas made by movie producers for extending the copyright duration. Although not agreeing to extend copyright to 95 years, as it did in the US, Parliament did make changes to the legislation controlling film copyright. The change has allowed the producer and the main director of a movie to collaborate on a project. The change will result in a major director's copyright being protected for 70 years, as opposed to a producer's copyright being protected for just 60 years. The outcome is the protection period for films has been extended from 60 to 70 years.

Using Works in Public Domain upon expiration: Traps and Pitfalls

Verify that the version you want to use is indeed in the public domain before depending on a work's public domain status. Second copyright may be used to protect PD works from later copies or alterations (e.g., translations, revisions, annotated and illustrated editions). Copyright describes the additional layer of unique content that the second author has contributed in subsequent copies or modifications. To avoid legal complications, it is essential to only utilise the original Public Domain version and not any future copyrighted versions that could include editorial changes.

Contrary to Shakespeare's Hamlet, the New Folger Library Version of Hamlet is not in the public domain. You should keep in mind that many works created before 1923 had subsequent revisions (such as Dale Carnegie's Public Speaking, A Practical Course for Business Men (1915)), and that these latter editions are subject to copyright protection and royalties. As a result, you should preserve a copy of the PD work you used or referred to in a secure location only in case there is a legal dispute.

The next trap may be the cleverest of all the traps. The work may still be protected in other countries even though it is in the public domain in the US. For instance, in nations like Germany, where copyright protection is based on the date of the author's death rather than a predetermined number of years, a work by a US author that is in PD in the US owing to failure to renew may still be protected there.

If the author passed away within the previous 70 years, you might need to obtain their consent in order to publish a work in the public domain in another nation. You might face legal action from other nations if you don't obtain authorization. Several foreign works that had been in the public domain before were given their copyright back in 1996 as a result of the international trade agreements GATT and NAFTA (including copyright notice and renewal requirements).

In order to be compensated, the foreign employee must be copyrighted in the "original" nation and not have been first published in the US. Resurrected works that are no longer in the public domain may not be utilised without the owner's consent.

Determining Whether a Work is in the Public Domain

You may take advantage of the plethora of public domain content if you are aware of copyright expiration dates. Thus, it is advantageous to have a fundamental grasp of copyright law. One useful generalisation is that all works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain in the United States. There are millions of more works that have fallen into the public domain due to:

In addition to pre-1923 works, failures include

 

• Failure to renew or

 

• Failure to affix the proper notification. As was previously mentioned, the date of creation affects how long a work has copyright protection in the US.

According to research released in 2003, the previous two significant copyright changes before CTEA—the Copyright Act of 1976 and the 1988 Berne Convention—had a significant impact on copyright registrations. Another research from 2006 discovered a significant rise in film output in countries that expanded copyright durations from the author's life plus fifty years to the author's life plus seventy years between 1991 and 2002. This eloquently proves that copyright extension fosters invention.

In a nutshell,

There are several traps for the unwary if you're seeking for works to change, reuse, or republish in the public domain. To fully understand the rights attached to works in the public domain, you will need expert advice if you are inexperienced with the nuances of copyright law. Although if there are many treasures in the Public Domain, such as great movies and obscure pieces, one should be mindful that not everything that shines is gold.

Licenses from both rights holders and identifiable persons may still be necessary, as this article shows. As a result, regardless of who may have created it or controlled the copyright in the past, just because something is publicly accessible does not mean it is in the public domain.

 

 

Apr 24, 2023