Re: U.K. Copyright Duration

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> I have a few questions about the duration of copyright in the U.K.:
>
> 1. When did the U.K. adopt "life + 70" years?
>
> 2. Was "life + 70" retroactively applied to works that were still
> under copyright? Did it revive copyrights in works already in
> the public domain?
>
> 3. When did the U.K. previously adopt "life + 50"? Was it
> retroactively applied to works still under copyright? Did it
> revive copyright in works already in the public domain?
>
> For those who would prefer a concrete hypothetical: Suppose a book was
> first published in 1895, and the author died in 1946. My understanding
> (correct me if I am mistaken) is that in 1895, the duration of copyright
> in the U.K. was the longer of life + 7 years or 42 years. So, unless
> the copyright was extended by legislation, the work would have entered
> the public domain in 1953. Is this correct?

Dear Prof. Ochoa,

The UK adopted the 70 year pma term by Act of Parliament in December, 1996. This was pursuant to its obligation under the EC term directive which harmonised term throughout the EC, with a deadline for implementation of July, 1995. (Many countries implemented late).

The new term did apply to all works in which copyright then subsisted. It also applied to all works which could have qualified had the ne law been in place at the time of their publication.

There were many famous beneficiaries of this change in the law, the universe of beneficiaries being every famous author who died between 1925 and 1945, e.g., Kipling, Elgar, Joyce and many others. I think Conan Doyle and Puccini just missed the cut-off. But by far the biggest beneficiary of all this and, apparently, the holder of the world's most valuable copyrights, is the small publishing house of Frederick Warne & Co., publishers of Peter Rabbit and everything else that Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated, properties which generate several hundred million dollars a year in royalties worldwide. Potter dies in 1943, all of her works fell into the public domain in the UK and in 1993, and all of her works were revived for another 17 years in 1995. Thus, Peter Rabbit, first published in 1893, will not now fall into the public domain in the UK until the year 2013 -- 120 years of protection. (Warne also enjoys the unique advantage of being both author and publisher, as Potter married Frederick Warne and left all of her estate to the publishing house).

Of course, there are transitional rules, as in the US, preserving the effectiveness of contracts entered into with respect to works formerly in the public domain, in order to protect the expectations of the parties, etc.

3. I do not know when the UK adopted the previous term -- it was certainly a feature of the 1988 Copyright, Patents, and Designs Act, but whether it first came in with the 1911 Act or the 1956 Act, I do not know. I believe that the 50 year pma term was first adopted internationally as part of the Brussels revision (1948) of the Berne Convention.

I hope that these informal remarks help. The parliamentary debates in Dec. 1995 covered some of these matters, but they are not very helpful.

For the record, I am a US copyright lawyer practicing in the UK, and my informal comments should not be treated as legal advice, etc.

Best regards,

D. Panethiere

Darrell Panethiere
London
<darrell.panethiere[_at_]ifpi.org> Received on Tue Jan 26 1999 - 12:21:37 GMT