[LINK] copyright question for you

[Roger Clarke]

At 16:25 +1000 29/4/12, Kim Holburn wrote:
>I have a strange copyright question for those of you that might 
>know.  Someone wants to publish writings of someone who died in 1927 
>with no descendants.  Some of her work was published in 1985 and 
>some is yet unpublished.
>As I understand it, (and IANAL) copyright starts from the moment a 
>work is published, but it belongs to the author or the author's 
>descendants.  Does this apply even if the author died so long ago 
>and what happens if the author had no descendants?
>Also this author is Australian and lived in Australia.  Now if her 
>work is going to be published in the UK how does that change things?

I wonder if copyright.com.au offers a ready-reckoner ...

IANAL and this simple answer is very probably *wrong* - but may help 
tempt someone who actually knows what they're talking about to do the 
sums  (%-|}

1.  Whether there were descendants or not is irrelevant.
2.  Who the ownership vested in is irrelevant.
3.  Death of the author plus 50 years, at that time = 1977 expiry.
4.  Subsequent extension to 70 years not retrospective to that work.

So it's open for publication, i.e. 'in the public domain'.

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University