LibriVox Forum

I am thinking of starting a solo project for the Finnish translation by Viki Kärkkäinen of Knut Hamsun's Hunger (link: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53365). This translation is found on Project Gutenberg and is PD in the US. However, when I opening the launch thread, it gave me this message:

Volunteers outside the USA: Knut Hamsun died in 1952. The author's work is still protected by copyright in places like Europe, where copyright is author's death plus 70 years, Australia (author's death plus 70 years for authors who died after 1955) or Canada (author's death plus 50 years), UNLESS the rule of shorter term applies. <p>

As I am in Finland, does this mean I should not do this project (at least until 2022)?

Yes, that's how I'd interpret the rules. If Hamsun had been American, there might have been a bit more wiggle-room, but Norwegian, no. Helpfully, his translator, Kärkkäinen, died in 1946, so you don't have to factor that in -- his work's already in the Finnish PD as well as US.

If you're really in the mood to do it now, you could do the recordings, and then save them very safely to post on 1st Jan 2023 (when the copyright should expire as long as the laws don't change in the meantime.) I'd probably pick something else for the moment, myself

Thank you for the quick reply. I will keep Hunger on my mind for the future but do something else for now.

I want to read "surely your joking mr. Feynman" and I don't know if it's have copyrights reserved. how do I check this?

You'd start with the question: Was it published after 1963? If yes, then there's no need for further checking, it's in copyright for a very, very long time.

In this case, as it was published in 1985, it becomes public domain 70 years after Richard's death, so, January 1st, 2059.

Oh wow. OK thank you very much