Re: A mere photograph

On Thu, 1 May 1997, Michael Lean <m.lean[_at_]qut.edu.au> wrote:
>
> On 29/04/97, Larry Urbanski <larryu[_at_]moviecraft.com> wrote:
> >
> > Photographs made in the US prior to 1963 are a different story. The
> > bulk of published and copyrighted photographs made prior to this year
> > were not renewed in the USA, and are in the public domain. Still,
> > searches would be required to verify this.
>
> Can someone explain to a mere Antipodean what happened in 1963, and
> why photographs (and presumably other works) created prior to that
> date had to have their copyright renewed?

I think Larry meant "1963 or earlier" or "prior to 1964".

But nothing actually happened in that year -- the year of the event that makes the difference is 1992.

The explanation is that a copyright that commenced in 1963 would have had a first 28-year term ending in 1991, renewable for another 47; a copyright commencing in 1964 would have had a first 28-year term ending in 1992, renewable for another 47.

In 1992, the U.S. enacted Public Law 107-307, 106 Stat. 264, which made renewal optional. That is, works whose first term would have expired in 1992 or later (that is, works copyrighted 1964 or later) automatically received their renewal term. This wasn't retroactive, so works copyrighted 1963 or earlier (and whose first term therefore had alreay ended 1991 or earlier) would still have had to have been renewed to obtain the renewal term.

--
Terry Carroll       | "The invention provides means for continuously
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