Re: d/copyright years when upstream does not use years?

Hi,

* Russ Allbery <[email protected]> [2026-08-29 00:00]:
>Ansgar <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> I don't think it matters for any recent code? Copyright usually expires
>> x years after the authors death, so creation date isn't that relevant.
>
>Copyright in the US for works for hire expires after 95 years from its
>first publication. That's a common case for a lot of software.

Obviously, I am not a laywer.

Do the expiration times not presuppose that the copyrighted work is in 
its final form at publication time (such as movies or books)? Free 
software, especially if it remains in widespread use, is continuously 
developed, updated, fixed and re-released, which (in my humble 
non-lawyer opinion) should reset the copyright expiration timer.

And if that's actually the case, I'd say any software which remains 
completely unmaintained for 95 years to trigger copyright expiration is 
very unlikely to be practically relevant, and will probably not even 
compile any more.


Cheers
Timo


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