Posts Tagged: "copyright duration"

As a general rule, a copyright lasts for the life of the creator PLUS another 70 years. So your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can benefit from your creation well after you have left this earth. For the price the rights you obtain with a federal registration are a true bargain! File early and often my friends! You can never have too many copyrights, and invariably if you pick and choose when to file you will wish you had applied for a copyright sooner once someone is infringing. By then it will be too late for statutory damages and attorneys fees, which is unfortunate. The early bird gets the worm, and those quick to file a copyright application reap the most rewards.

Currently, the term for copyright protection is life of the author plus 70 years. To put this into perspective for you, Steamboat Willie initially aired in 1928. The copyright is ruled by the 1909 Act and has a shorter term of protection that the current scheme. Steamboat Willie is due to go into the public domain in 2023 unless Congress extends the copyright term again. I’m not sure if nearly one hundred years is a limited term (almost everybody alive during the initial air date will be dead before they can use it), but I guess Congress and Disney think so.

Answering the question about how long a copyright lasts, or whether a particular copyrighted work is in the public domain and can be readily used without the payment of royalties, is an impossible question to answer in the abstract.  This is because over the years the United States Congress has periodically altered the length of copyright protection and the formalities…