Re: copyright and "The Jungle Book"

On Mon, 8 May 2000, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 6 May 2000, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > Most of Walt Disney's animated films were based on public-domain
> > works published in the 1800's. . . . _Jungle Book_ (released exactly
> > one year after Kipling's copyrights expired),
>
> Is this accurate?

In most of the rest of the world, the life + 50 rule used to apply, which means that all of Kiplings works, who lived 1865 - 1936, became public domain on 1 January 1987. So Disney certainly had to talk with his heirs for world wide distribution. In October 1995, the rights were revived, and will expire again on 1 January 2007, with some exceptions for prior exploitation, and I wonder whether this provision applies and Disney again has to pay for their use or not.

Jeroen Hellingman
<jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> Received on Tue May 09 2000 - 16:17:51 GMT