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Public Domain Character: Difference between revisions

Public Domain Character (view source)

Revision as of 23:24, 23 June 2024

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A character that nobody owns anymore, or was never owned in the first place, that everybody wants to take a shot at writing.
 
Under U.S. law, works<ref>Except for audio and sound recordings which are handled differently.</ref> first published in 19221928 or earlier are no longer subject to copyright. Before the 1970s, copyright was not automatic in the United States and most other countries, and it was possible for a copyright to lapse if not registered or renewed in a timely manner, so certain later works are public domain as well. In [[Europe]], the rule is that the author has to have been dead for 70 years. Under the Berne Convention, work-for-hire has a copyright term of 100 years from the date of publication. Additionally, the holder of a copyright may choose to release it prematurely into the [[Public Domain]].
 
Thanks to the trend of various changes in legislation, copyright terms can sometimes be cynically described as lasting at least X+20 years, where X is the number of years since the release of ''[[Steamboat Willie]]'', the first Mickey Mouse cartoon (this is not strictly correct as it was actually the ''third'' Mickey Mouse cartoon, but it was the first talkie and the first to be widely released). It is generally agreed that the most recent extension of American copyright duration—the [[wikipedia:Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act|Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act]]—was enacted at the behest of the [[Walt Disney]] Company solely to keep Mickey Mouse cartoons from entering the public domain.
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