> Consequently, that left only five potential results:
>
>
> (2) The work was a foreign work that fell into the
> public domain due to
> publication without proper notification, and may
> have been restored
> under the recent restoration provisions. This can be
> confirmed online at
> the LOC.
You can't confirm this at the LOC. The Copyright Office has on file thousands of NIEs, but these represent only a tiny fraction of all the foreign works that were restored. What you have to do is find out the work's publication history. The work would have had to be first published outside the U.S. and must still be under copyright in the foreign country for it's U.S. copyright to be restored. I'm not sure whether the foreign publication must comply with the U.S. definition or that of the foreign country.
> (4) The original and subsequent display/uses of the
> work somehow did not
> constitute general publication under the 1909 or
> 1976 Acts, the work
> remains unpublished, and will fall into the public
> domain at the end of
> this year unless published/registered, thereby
> extending its copyright.
Only unpublished works created by authors who died before 1932 will enter the public domain on 1/1/03. The author of the work in question died in 1985. If it's an unpublished work, it receives a copyright terms of life plus 70 years, so the copyright wouldn't expire until 2056.
(5) The original display of the work somehow did not
> constitute general
> publication under the 1909 or 1976 Acts, the work
> has since been
> published under later Acts with proper registration
> or notice (or no
> notice if published after 1989), and remains under
> copyright for the
> current statutory term.
>
Registration is not required for copyright protection
for published or unpublished work. It's needed only to
file a copyright infringement lawsuit--and only if the
copyright owner is American.
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