2016 January 10

Wiki activity

(H. G. Wells talk page, Public Domain Super Heroes) {My ideas about H. G. Wells copyright expiration.}

This is my understanding: Any of Wells’ works published in the United States before 1923 are already in the public domain … in the United States. But they are not yet in the public domain in the United Kingdom, their country of origin. After he has been dead seventy years, they will be in the public domain in both countries (and in those countries that observe the rule of the shorter term). Unlike in the US, however, copyright in the UK expires at the end of the seventieth year, so they will not enter the public domain until 1 January 2017.

The Holy Terror was published in 1938, so it will enter the public domain in the UK in 2017 like his earlier works but will not be in the public domain in the US until 2034 (assuming the copyright was renewed after its twenty‐eighth year).