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

Timo Röhling <[email protected]> writes:

> 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.

This is one of the few topics in this area on which I believe there is a
lot of legal discussion since Mickey Mouse, one of the most famous
copyrighted properties, was a gradual development over time with animated
shorts released at various points and the character taking shape over
multiple years.

My understanding of the general consensus, and of course I'm not a lawyer,
is that design elements enter the public domain 95 years after the
publication of the work that first included them, even though later design
elements are still covered. See, for example, the summary at:

    https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

I don't think there's *explicit* precedent for extending this to software,
but the analogy seems obvious and probably more straightforward than the
characteristics of a fictional character. The software published more than
95 years ago enters the public domain; the subsequent changes made less
than 95 years ago (and that have significant original creative input,
which will not be all of them) do not. So the package essentially enters
the public domain on a rolling basis.

If there were some reset of the copyright timer from subsequent release of
revised and updated work, Mickey Mouse would definitely not be in the
public domain today, since Disney is still actively making new creative
work with the property. But it is universally recognized, including by
Disney, to partly be in the public domain.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email protected])              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>