# If you declare a work public domain, can your estate reverse your decision? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 29, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-declare-a-work-public-domain-can-your-estate-reverse-your-decision/645516 "2012-12-29T20:30:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-declare-a-work-public-domain-can-your-estate-reverse-your-decision/645516/21 "2012-12-30T21:30:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I disagree, because that’s the circumstance I hypothesized about above. Paizo could probably keep selling what they had under the license, but I doubt that a judge would allow them to sell new versions that were printed later. So, why hasn’t Wizards done it, then? According to some reports, **Pathfinder** sales have actually surpassed, or at least equaled, the sales of **D&D.** If it was within Wizards’ power to shut down one of their primary competitors, why would they voluntarily choose not to? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-declare-a-work-public-domain-can-your-estate-reverse-your-decision/645516/22 "2012-12-30T21:36:01Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > Suppose I write and publish a book and in the book itself I state on the usual copyright page, “This book may be freely copied and redistributed by anyone provided that this notice is included in all copies.” > > After I die, my heirs seek to rescind this. How would they go about doing so. Could they file notice of this with the copyright office? Anyone who happens across a copy of the book would presume to have license to copy. Even if they thought such rights had been rescinded, unless there was notice of such in some place official how could they even determine that? A reasonable person would expect such a gambit to fail. Lawyers have a different concept of “reasonable”. They would look for loopholes and such. An example of a work that was taken out of the (almost) public domain is _It’s a Wonderful Life_. It’s main copyright was forfeited to to failure to renew. (It’s the same reason some episodes of _The Andy Griffith Show_ are in the public domain. This no longer happens since renewal requirements were removed in US law.) So everybody and his uncle aired it during the holidays. (It’s a quite bizarre story. See the Wikipedia [page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Wonderful_Life#Release). The story rights are also involved.) But someone noticed that the music used in the movie was still under copyright so slam bang, the whole movie magically is under copyright again. I don’t know how RKO (then, Paramount has it now) “notified” everyone that it was their property again. But it was a famous enough case that if you were in the broadcasting business, you would have heard about it. The general way any copyright violation is handled is that the owner’s reps keep an eye out and when they find something they start writing letters. For something like a book, there might be options involving reproduction in other forms (e.g., other languages, ebooks and audio books) that could be claimed to still be covered. And then _maybe_ then can claim the original book is a form of _those_ works. Also someone might claim that the exact format of the book was the only right given up, so if you tried publishing with a different font, different layout, etc. that is a “derivative work” not covered by the original release of rights. And on and on. I’m sure a well paid lawyer could figure out a bunch of almost logical ways of doing this. Messy, ugly, costly stuff. In the media business there tends to be a lot of care to avoid pushing things in a _quid pro quo_ way. E.g., the copyright claim on _Happy Birthday_ is really dubious, but no one ever really challenged it because that might cause a retaliation and it would just escalate. So if the heirs made a reasonable sounding claim of re-instating rights, with visible legal representation, most companies would back off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-declare-a-work-public-domain-can-your-estate-reverse-your-decision/645516.md?page=1)