There are study notes published for Shakespeare’s works, his plays are still being performed and there are even movies and roleplaying games supplements based on his materials.
Who do they get the permission from? Are Shakespearse’s works already in the public domain? And does that means if I want to based my next award-winning board game/computer game/collectible card games/graphic novels and whatever on the Merchant of Venice or Midsummer’s Night Dreams, I can just go ahead?
No one. Yes. Yes.
Yes they’re in public domain. In the EU copyrights last until 75 years after the death of the author. Shakespeare has been dead over 300 years, plus copyrights didn’t exist in the Elizabethian Age.
We owe Shakespeare’s work to the Bard, himself. 
Actually, copyrights did exist under the common law in the Elizabethan age, even though Parliament did not pass a copyright act until 1709.
Actually, they did, sort of, in terms of getting a “monopoly” from the Crown for something, including the printing of a particular book. But in the sense that you owned your product and no one could print it without your consent, you’re right.
Our English Lit. professor Doper, whom I’m ashamed to admit that at 2:00 AM I cannot remember the board name of, even though I’ve known her for six years, could give a lot more detail than I’m aware of regarding rights regarding published works in Elizabethan/Jacobean times.
Fretful Porpentine
::: goes off to research early-onset Alzheimer’s ::: 
A lot of work is in the public domain now, as a matter of fact. A good place to download public domain books has always been Project Gutenberg, which has a collection that includes the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Franz Kafka, and O. Henry.
Yes, it does, however of course it doesn’t guarantee your success (although personally, I think the idea sounds good).
As Polycarp says, it was possible to get a patent from the Crown giving the recipient a monopoly right over the printing of certain types of books. In fact, two of those monopolies - for printing the KJV and the Book of Common Prayer - still exist.
But more important was the registration system of the Stationers’ Company. In theory only members of the Stationers’ Company (and a handful of other special cases) were allowed to print books and the Company’s own rules made it possible for a printer to register a particular book to prevent other members of the Company pirating it. By Shakespeare’s day this had been strengthened by the fact that it was illegal to publish a book without a government licence and the granting of those licences was dependant on registration with the Stationers. Not that this stopped unregistered or unlicensed books being printed, or indeed pirated.
The crucial thing about this ‘copyright’ however was that it was held by the printer, not the author. But it was this that, with the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695 and the passage of the 1709 Copyright Act, mutated into the modern concept of an author’s copyright.
the author was deemed to have given his work to the world. Having sold his manuscript to the printer, his right to receive remuneration was at an end.
We should note that individual editions of the play(s) may well still be copyright, if the editor can show original textual analysis or amendation.
The way I understand it, only the original content is under copyright: The footnotes, research, glosses, glossaries, analyses, and so on. The meat of any such text, the plays themselves, was not created by the author of that edition and is not under that author’s copyright.
A related question: I saw a copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in a grocery store. It was a cheap little $2.95 paperback. Obviously the text is in the public domain, but how could they produce a book like this without paying royalties to an editor? They must have read the work in book form in order to produce the copy they’re selling. They couldn’t be working from the author’s manuscrpit, since it no longer exists.
Those cheap editions are often reprints of editions that were published more than 75 years ago, and hence are out of copyright. However, the publisher information on the back of the title page often obscures this, so the naive purchaser thinks that it’s a new work.
Translations of a work are just as copyrightable as the original work. To reprint classical works without paying the translator, the translations themselves must be in the public domain. That means having been written before 1923 for U.S. authors.
Am I the only one that thought the OP was funny saying “already”?
After how long do you think works do go into public domain? I think 400 years is plenty of time.
Actually, as a footnote, there are works made entirely of Shakespeare’s writings that are under copyright.
For instance, there’s The Marowitz Hamlet, which consists of scenes from Hamlet reordered to give the play a different meaning. Charles Marowitz owns copyright to the play.
And, of course, the Reduced Shakespare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) consists of words written by Shakespeare, but is under copyright.
Of course, the copyright is due to the fact that a new work has been created.
I dunno, with the Sonny Bono act (basically lengthening existing copyrights 10 years), it might come to that some day. (I will not be suprised if copyrights are extended ANOTHER 10 years, and ANOTHER … )
But already PD works are probably safe…
Brian
Or intentionally and voluntarily placed in the public domain. It happens rarely (especially regarding translation, which is what EM’s comment references), but it does happen.
Regarding the KJV and BCP monopolies which APB mentioned, those letters patent govern the U.K. (and probably what’s left of the British Empire). Whether it has any validity whatsoever in the rest of the Commonwealth, I don’t know.
In the U.S., the KJV text itself is in the public domain – which is why anyone bringing out a KJV Bible is sure to add some sort of reference material – maps, brief concordance, study guide, something – in the back of the book, so that they can place a copyright notice (which of course actually applies to the book with the supplementary material, but is often seen by the unwary as covering the text too).
Modern translations of the Bible are, generally, copyright by their translators/editors, the sponsoring agency (National Council of Churches, for example), or by the publisher in their behalf.
The Episcopal Church maintains copyright over the American versions (1789, 1892, 1928, 1979) of the Prayer Book, not from a profit standpoint but to ensure that anything offered as “the Book of Common Prayer” corresponds to what the church has actually authorized. I have no idea what the status would be if an American publisher decided to bring out an edition of the 1662 (Church of England) BCP.
As mentioned, translations can be copyrighted. However authors don’t always get royalties - it depends on the book. Authors of series books, or movie adaptations, usually get a flat fee. In this case the editor might well be employed by the publisher, and just get a salary, or be a free-lancer, and get a flat fee.