Duration of copyright: companies

05 May 2009 in Law by Enoch Lau | 4 comments

In Australia, for published works where the author is identifiable, the duration of copyright is 70 years from the death of the author. This applies even if it is work performed under employment for a company; even if the company ultimately owns the copyright, the length of copyright protection is measured by reference to the human author’s lifespan.

This can seem rather counter-intuitive for the uninitiated, and for many “company-produced” works, like commercial software, it is quite difficult to determine the authors of that work, and hence when it will fall into the public domain.

On the other hand, United States copyright law has a notion of corporate authorship: copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author (as in Australia), but for works of corporate authorship, copyright expires 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is earlier.

120 years does sound quite extreme, and the U.S. Act that extended protection to this extent has been, perhaps rightfully, chided as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” — however, the Australian Act isn’t really much better. If you assume that the average author is 40 years old and dies at 75 years, and corporate works are published not long after they are created, that’s 105 years of copyright protection on average. And since the duration of copyright of works of joint authorship (as would be many corporate works) extends to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author, the U.S. Act could, in many cases, result in a shorter copyright term than under the Australian Act. However, if the authors of the work cannot be ascertained by reasonable inquiry (i.e. for anonymous or pseudonymous works, a category that some corporate works might fall into), then copyright only extends to 70 years after publication in Australia.

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  1. Tommy Chen’s avatar

    Tommy Chen on 05 May 2009 at 9:50 PM

    If I recall cor­rectly, the “Mickey Mouse” is a ref­er­ence to the legis­lat­ive ori­gin of the rule – it was spe­cific­ally exten­ded because the copy­right on Mickey Mouse owned by the Walt Dis­ney Com­pany was about to expire.

    Reply

    1. Enoch Lau’s avatar

      Enoch Lau on 05 May 2009 at 9:54 PM

      You’re right – I con­fused the main Act with the amend­ing Act

      Reply

      1. James Kilburn’s avatar

        James Kilburn on 01 Sep 2009 at 4:24 PM

        Does the same dur­a­tion of copy­right that applies to pub­lished works, apply to works such as writ­ten music or recor­ded music?

        Reply

        1. Enoch Lau’s avatar

          Enoch Lau on 01 Sep 2009 at 10:59 PM

          Copy­right in ori­ginal lit­er­ary, dra­matic, musical and artistic works sub­sists for 70 years after the author’s death, if the work is pub­lished before the author’s death (s 33).

          Copy­right in a sound record­ing and cine­ma­to­graph film sub­sists for 70 years after first pub­lic­a­tion (s 93-​​94).

          Copy­right in a tele­vi­sion or sound broad­cast sub­sists for 50 years after the broad­cast (s 95).

          Copy­right in a pub­lished edi­tion of a work sub­sists for 25 years after first pub­lic­a­tion (s 96).

          Note the dif­fer­ence between a musical work and a sound record­ing of that musical work.

          (For the pre­cise word­ing, have a read of the Copy­right Act itself.)

          Reply