The Great Gatsby prequel set for release days after copyright expires; The Guardian, July 15, 2020

Alison Flood, The Guardian; The Great Gatsby prequel set for release days after copyright expires

"US copyright in The Great Gatsby, which is generally regarded as one of the best novels ever written, expires on 1 January 2021, meaning that the work enters the public domain and can be freely adapted for the first time. Farris Smith’s prequel, Nick, will be published four days later, on 5 January, in the US, by Little, Brown; and on 25 February in the UK by No Exit Press."

Everyone invited: `Great Gatsby’ copyright to end in 2021; Associated Press, January 22, 2020

Hillel Italie, Associated Press; Everyone invited: `Great Gatsby’ copyright to end in 2021

 "The novel’s copyright is set to expire at the end of 2020, meaning that anyone will be allowed to publish the book, adapt it to a movie, make it into an opera or stage a Broadway musical. No longer will you need to permission to write a sequel, a prequel, a Jay Gatsby detective novel or a Gatsby narrative populated with Zombies."

What Happens When Mein Kampf's Copyright Expires?; New Republic, 3/6/15

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, New Republic; What Happens When Mein Kampf's Copyright Expires? :

"Later this year, the official copyright for Mein Kampf expires—70 years after the demise of its author. Since 1945, the Bavarian State (which owns the copyright) has refused to allow anyone to publish the volume. But in expectation of the copyright’s expiration (and in the hope of getting a jump on neo-Nazis who may try to publish their own slanted versions of the text) the esteemed Munich and Berlin-based Institute for Contemporary History decided some years ago to publish its own, critically annotated version. The move has generated some opposition, with some arguing against the release of any new version; “Can you annotate the Devil?” one critic asks."

Should Germans Read ‘Mein Kampf’?; New York Times, 7/7/14

Peter Ross Range, New York Times; Should Germans Read ‘Mein Kampf’? :

"GERMANY is once again passing through the wringer of its past. At issue this time are not the deeds but the words of Adolf Hitler and the planned republication of his infamous manifesto-as-autobiography, “Mein Kampf,” a book that has been officially suppressed in the country since the end of World War II...

Since then, although “Mein Kampf” has maintained a shadow presence — on the back shelves of used bookstores and libraries and, more recently, online — its copyright holder, the state of Bavaria, has refused to allow its republication, creating an aura of taboo around the book.

All that is about to change. Bavaria’s copyright expires at the end of 2015; after that, anyone can publish the book: a quality publisher, a mass-market pulp house, even a neo-Nazi group."

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle; New York Times, 7/17/09

Brad Stone via New York Times; Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle:

"Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”

Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.

“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=1

Many happy returns for Warner Music, The Guardian, 1/6/09

Via The Guardian: Many happy returns for Warner Music:

"Despite everyone's carefree joy in singing Happy Birthday to You, this simple song puts you in legal jeopardy every time it exits your mouth. A considerable amount of money flows to the corporation that owns the copyright. But ... maybe that company doesn't own the copyright, and maybe you are in no legal peril. Professor Robert Brauneis, of George Washington University law school, took a professional, long, deep look into these questions. This Happy Birthday matter, it turns out, is a murky mess.

Brauneis published a 69-page disquisition called Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song. Before plunging into the legal history, evidence and arguments, he examined the history...

...Brauneis reckons that the copyright probably expired, for various reasons, decades ago. Nevertheless, nominal ownership passed to a succession of individuals and then companies, which did and do aggressively collect fees.

The story comes with plenty of evidentiary paperwork and audio recordings. These include: filings in four federal court cases in the 1930s and 1940s; litigation filings over the management of a trust that was created to receive royalties; unpublished papers of and about Patty and Mildred Hill; probate court records in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Chicago; and records from the US Copyright Office.

Brauneis has put more than 100 items online at http://tinyurl.com/6p3ygk for you to peruse and sing along with."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/06/improbable-research-warner-music-copyright

Life after death: The London Times, 1/3/09

Via The London Times: Life after death, As a new dramatisation of Anne Frank’s diary is about to be shown, Garry Jenkins looks at the ways in which this remarkable Dutch girl’s legacy has extended far beyond her words, to charities and good causes around the world:

"Copyright in the diary [of Anne Frank] expires at the end of the year 2015. From then on, with publishers free to produce and edit the diary without paying for the rights, the foundation’s main income stream could run dry. “I’m afraid that our income may well be less when the rights run out. But we hope that publishers will give us some money so that we can continue our charitable work,” Elias says.

Elias’s greatest fear is that Anne’s legacy might suffer the fate it has already undergone in Spain, where a musical of her life has been playing in Madrid. “I absolutely hate it,” says Elias, who was powerless to stop it because the work didn’t draw on any of the writings in the diary. “I don’t think the story of Anne Frank and the Holocaust is something about which you can make a funny evening with laughter and dance. But as soon as the rights run out, I’m afraid more musicals will be written and composed.”"

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5388500.ece