Term of Copyright
- Generally, copyright subsists in a work for the life of the author, the remainder of the calendar year in which he dies and 50 years thereafter (s.6).
- Works of joint authorship?The rule is life plus fifty years following the end of the calendar year of the last surviving author of the work.
- When a work is published after an author’s death (posthumous)? Copyright protection is calculated until the end of the calendar year and fifty years from first publication.
- Anonymous works? Where the identity of the author is unknown, copyright shall subsist for whichever following terms ends earlier:
- 1)remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year; and
- 2)the remainder of the calendar year of the making of the work and a period of seventy five years following the end of the calendar year
- Special cases re: photographs?
- The copyright in photographs is for the life of the author plus fifty years. (Before Bill C-32, the term was the remainder of the calendar years of the making of the photograph and a further fifty years).
- Where the owner is a corporation, the term of copyright in a photograph is the remainder of the year of the making of the initial negative or plate (or initial photograph where no negative or plate) plus fifty years.
- If the author of the photograph is a corporation in which the majority of voting shares are owned by a natural person who is the author of the photograph, then the term of copyright is the remainder of the calendar year in which the author dies, and 50 years following the end of the calendar year.
- Unpublished works have unlimited perpetual copyright protection
- Crown works? Remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and for a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year
©Entcounsel. 2000
