Rich Mason <cameratraveler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Regarding the photo in the Gallery this week that started this thread, > if I'm reading correctly, copyright had to be renewed every 28 years > prior to 1978. Failure to renew resulted in expiration of copyright. > I'm not sure if this was the law in effect at the time the Gallery > photo was made. I would find it hard to believe that a photograph > made by a portrait studio 100 years ago would have had its copyright > extended every 28 years, or that the picture was even registered in > the first place. Kind of. (This was US law only, the laws elsewhere were different.) There was only *one* renewal allowed; you couldn't keep renewing. However, when the US laws changed, it was done so that anything still in copyright under the *old* laws came under the *new* laws. So things originally copyrighted under the "28+28" system came under the life+50 system (later extended to life+70) even if the artist had been dead for some time at that point. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
