I have a book first published in Chicago in 1929; the author died in 1958. Assuming the text was copyrighted, and the copyright renewed, then the book is currently under copyright in the US until 2024. My question is, assuming the book was never published in the United Kingdom, is it under copyright there?
Currently UK copyright law says that copyright on published works expires 70 years after the death of the author (which would be 2028) and copyright on unpublished works expires on 31 December 2039. I don’t know whether “published” in this case means “published in the UK”. I also don’t know whether this general rule applies at all in this case, since it may be superseded by some copyright treaty between the US and the UK.
If no one here knows the answer to this question, I’d appreciate knowing where I could get it answered without having to pay a copyright lawyer a huge consultation fee.
The UK will consider the book to have been copyrighted at some point, even though that’s not where it was published. I’m not so sure about when they consider the copyright to expire.
There’s a summary and a bunch of links to SD threads plus authoritative sources on this topic in my Unofficial FAQ.
A SDAB report says:
I think what this means is that if you hold a copyright in one country, another country that is a party to a copyright treaty will enforce it to the extent that it would had the work been copyrighted in its own country, but not according to the holder’s country’s laws if those laws provide greater protection.
IANAL but my interpretation would be that the UK will recognize the US copyright at least through 2024, the earliest of the dates, and possibly through 2039, according to UK law. The fact that it was not published in the UK does not mean that the UK will not recognize the US copyright.
However, if you have a real business need to get this question answered reliably, you may need to pay a copyright lawyer, or hope that one shows up here for free (who will give only generic information about copyright law and not your specific case).
Virtually all the books ever published are published only in their country of origin. If that meant that they were in the public domain elsewhere, copyright would be totally meaningless.
Most of the major countries in the world are signatories of the Berne Convention that obliges them to observe each other’s copyrights. You should assume as a default position that a book is copyright as of the rules of its country of origin, unless that has been superseded by later events.
So, yes, you have to behave as if the book will be under copyright until 2024.