Duration of Copyright

The Constitution says that copyright protection is afforded to authors only for “limited times,” so eventually copyrighted works do pass into the public domain. However, changes in copyright law make it difficult to determine when a particular work will pass into the public domain.

Under the old copyright law (pre-1978), copyright protection lasted for twenty-eight years and could be renewed for an additional twenty-eight years. In the early 1960’s, the renewal period was increased to forty-seven years, giving a published work a total of 75 years of protection.

The rules changed when the new copyright law was enacted. That law changed the basic rule for published works to protection for the life of the author plus fifty years. Then in 1998, Congress added an additional twenty years of protection (for life plus seventy years) to existing and future copyrights.

The duration of copyright protection is also different for works that are published anonymously or under a pseudonym and for works made for hire. Copyright protection for these works lasts for 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever comes first.

The copyright law’s treatment of unpublished works (diaries, letters, photographs, works of art, etc.) is much simpler than it used to be. With the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, Congress rescinded common law copyright (which in effect afforded copyright protection to unpublished works forever) and gave them the same statutory protection as published works, life of the author plus seventy years. The law did provide a grace period of sorts for existing common law copyrights, allowing them to remain in effect through the end of 2002.

For a chart summarizing duration of copyright, see Laura Gasaway’s “When Works Pass into the Public Domain"