> Peter Fairbrother[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > 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 > > OK, thanks, I concede. It's been pointed out that in Europe some of the extensions resulted in some things falling out of PD.
Not very germaine, but one really weird wrinkle is the status of the film "It's a wonderful life". The owner, apparently by oversight, failed to renew the copyright in mid-70s, and the film fell into the public domain. If you recall, during the 80s and early 90s the film became utterly inescapable on TV during the holiday season (I remember counting it being on no fewer then 8 times in one day once, in separate single showings) However, in 1993, Republic Pictures started to assert control on the basis that the song "Buffalo Girls" (which occurs many times throughout the film) was still in copyright. So, the film has effectively been removed from PD, after being in PD for nearly two decades. It's now seen much more rarely. Peter Trei
