🚀 go-pugleaf

Copyright lasts for decades - 75 years.

I know of one example in which a major publisher compiling a book
of poems by a famous author hired a research firm to verify the
copyright status of each poem in the proposed anthology. The Estate
of the deceased poet claimed that the copyrights were still valid,
and royalties due. In some cases the estate was right, while in
other cases the researcher was able to show that specific poems had
appeared in other publications under conditions which voided
the Estate's copyright claims.

Two points here: 1) the author (or Estate) was entitled to copyright
protection even on decades-old out-of-print items; 2) the
burden of proof that copyright was invalid fell to the
publisher; the author / Estate was assumed to have valid
claims.

Chris Burke
(I speak only for myself in this matter)