Thursday, April 16, 2009

Can the work of a cryogenically preserved author pass into the public domain? ?

If an author was preserved through cryogenics, would his work still be under his own copyright, or would the copyright expire after a period after his preservation?


Copyright expires 75 years after the work was written, whether or not the author is alive (if the author is dead, his heirs own the copyright). So the gray area of death vs. cryogenic freeze, doesn't apply.

To answer the question you thought you were asking, no person has been cryogencially frozen and brought back to life. You could not prove on paper that the person isn't dead.

Disney will buy another congressman, like they bought Sonny Bono, to extend copyrights. They'll continue doing this every time Steamboat Willie is in danger of becoming public domain. Count on it. The works of an author who has heirs will NEVER go into the public domain, never ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

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