I've been looking into the various copyrights laws around the world. This is quite important for me as a teacher. I hand out a lot of materials to my pupils, coming from a lot of sources. While teaching could be seen as 'Fair Use' I don't want to overdo it. Good thing I'm a science teacher. Some of my English- or Danish-language teacher colleagues have far more problems there.
The US was fairly easy; anything published prior to Jan 1st, 1923 is Public Domain. After that I need to check with the US Copyright Office. Thankfully they have a very nice website where you can check whether or not some work is copyrighted.
The UK is easier still. 70 calendar years after the author dies, the work is public domain. Same in most countries that signed and ratified the Berne Convention. Which means that one of my favorite books J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' will become public domain on September 3rd 2043.
There is one notable exception though: by an act of Parliament the Copyright on J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan' never expires in the UK, so the Great Ormond Street children's hospital has a small perpetual income from that. Of course, outside the UK, 'Peter Pan' is now public domain.
I have another reason for this. I'm working on a plan for something involving some of my craft skills, publishing and Etsy. It may or may not become reality, but sofar my calculations support my ideas. I just need to take a deeper look into the surreal convolutions of the Danish Tax Code to see what happens there. I'll let you all know if and when my Etsy store should go on-line. The name is reserved already though.
