COPYCENSE

"Earlier this year, the Australian affiliate of Project Gutenberg posted the 1936 novel ‘Gone With the Wind’ on its Web site for downloading at no charge. Last week, after an e-mail message was sent to the site by the law firm representing the estate of the book’s author, Margaret Mitchell, the hyperlink to the text turned into a ‘Page Not Found” dead end.

"At issue is the date when ‘Gone With the Wind’ enters the public domain. In the United States, under an extension of copyright law, "Gone With the Wind” will not enter the public domain until 2031, 95 years after its original publication. But in Australia, as in a handful of other places, the book was free of copyright restrictions in 1999, 50 years after Mitchell’s death."

Victoria Shannon. One Internet, Many Copyright Laws. The New York Times. Nov. 8, 2004.

(Editor’s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)

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