Bill Stewart wrote: > At 09:54 AM 01/20/2003 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: >> It dwindles because the rate at which the copyright period is increasing >> averages more than 1 year/year. Quite a number of works which had >> been in the public domain fell out of it when the 20 year extension went >> into effect. >> >> The public domain *did* dwindle. > > Did anything that had already become public domain cease to be public?
I just asked a friendly US copyright lawyer* about the US situation. In general, works that have fallen into the public domain in the US did not fall back into US copyright under any of the various extensions, including the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (I don't know if he was involved in it. Quite possibly, I'd guess). There is one exception, which covers mostly foreign-authored works which were not in copyright in the US on 1 Jan 1996 (the same date as in my other post...) but which were in copyright abroad. However, this was a result of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), not the 1988 extension. US copyright durations have been extended 11 times so far... and I agree that the public domain has been impoverished by this, in the sense that newer works have not fallen into it. -- Peter Fairbrother *who agreed not to charge me - must be on happy pills!
