Vintage Software Copyright

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-21 19:18, Paul Koning wrote:
> Wikipedia has a lot more detail, but from what it says, in the USA the answer is 75 years from publication, if copyright was in effect at the beginning of 1978 or if the work was created since then.

I believe the USA signed the Berne convention (although pretty recently 
compared to when it was written). And then it's 75 years from 
publication (I think) for companies, but 75 years from the death of the 
author when the copyright owner is a person.

(It used to be 50 years, but when the 50th anniversary of Hitlers death 
came about, they extended it to 75 years, to keep Mein Kampf away from 
the presses... :-) )

	Johnny

>
> 	paul
>
>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 1:11 PM, Rod Smallwood <rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yes OK and "very long"  would be?
>>
>> On 21/08/2015 18:03, Paul Koning wrote:
>>>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Rod Smallwood <rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?
>>> The same as any other copyright.  It depends on the country, but in general the answer is "very long".  In the USA, recently copyrights have been extended repeatedly, in what has been referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".  (It's called that because it was crafted to ensure that no Disney movie copyright will expire.)
>>>
>>> 	paul
>>>
>>
>