Life+ Countries: New PD Authors Jan 1

[TriciaG]

Here are some authors who died in 1962, and thus will be PD for Canada and other Life+50 countries. Works mentioned are from the source page:

Karen Blixen (Babette's Feast - 1958 and Out of Africa - 1937)
William Faulkner Novels set in the American South
Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha- 1922)
Mabel Dodge Luhan (Movers and Shakers- 1936)
Vita Sackville-West (The Land - 1926)

And authors who died in 1942, and thus will be PD for Life+70 countries (source):

Rachel Field (Hitty, Her First Hundred Years - 1929)

Also of note:
Howard R. Garis - 1962 (Uncle Wiggly books)

Other 1942 author deaths
Other 1962 author deaths

[TriciaG]

On Jan 1, 2014, both Robert Frost and C.S. Lewis will be PD for Life+50 countries! Too bad LibriVox is PD-US and Legamus is Life+70.

[Carolin]

another interesting author who died in 1942 is stefan zweig.
too bad his most famous works were published after 1922...

[RuthieG]

http://publicdomainday.org/ is a celebration of PDness in Death +xx countries, an initiative of COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain, supported by the Open Knowledge Foundation.

It also features a link to a fantastic 1937 radio broadcast "Public Domain" by Eustace Wyatt from the Columbia Workshop. I quote:

At some time or other, everyone has felt a keen desire to change his life, to break away from his accustomed routine and embark on an entirely new mode of living. For the purpose of our story, we assume that this same urge is felt by characters who are purely fictitious, and that the immortals of literature, who exist only between the well-worn covers of books, yearn for release from monotony even as you and I. In the fantasy we are about to present, the feelings expressed by the people you meet are their own, and not inspired by the authors who created them. Having escaped through copyright lane into the limitless expanse of the public domain, they seek to assert themselves as independent entities.

Here are Mrs. Gamp, Alice and the Mad Hatter, Sam Weller, Hamlet and many others as you have never heard them before. Mr. Weller sings the characters' new campaign song which begins "Oh, the copyright law is an 'orrible bane..."

Highly recommended.

Ruth

[carolb]

At some time or other, everyone has felt a keen desire to change his life, to break away from his accustomed routine and embark on an entirely new mode of living...

So true!

Carol

[English Andrew]

Two other important writers who died in 1942 were LM Montgomery and Robert Musil. It surprises me how few famous writers died that year.

[English Andrew]

ee cummings and William Faulkner died in 1962.

[RuthieG]

2014 will be better for us Europeans. These authors died in 1943:

E. M. Delafield
Hanns Heinz Ewers (German)
R. Austin Freeman
Elinor Glyn (I am particularly interested in The Wrinkle Book, Or, How to Keep Looking Young )
Radclyffe Hall
Edward Heron-Allen (+ his pseudonym Christopher Blayre)
W. W. Jacobs
Eric Knight
Henrik Pontoppidan (Danish)
Beatrix Potter

Ruth

[wildemoose]

Radclyffe Hall

I would love to record The Well of Loneliness. It's 1928 so just five years too late for me. Maybe I'll move to Europe in 2014.

[Piotrek81]

Bronisław Malinowski, a renowned anthropologist, famous for his field study carried out among primitive tribes, died in 1942, and it looks like a good part of his works was originally written in English, so there's no need to worry about translator's death date Not sure how many of his works were written before 1923, though. Seems like most of them appeared only after the cut-off.

[Cori]

You can come and be my roomie and do Well, Arielle, while I do The Unlit Lamp.

[neckertb]

2014 will be better for us Europeans. These authors died in 1943:


Henrik Pontoppidan (Danish)

Ruth

Ha, I am just reading him (not an easy read). I thought his works were PD already, but that explains why I did not find his texts online *headslap*

[TaoPhoenix]

You can come and be my roomie and do Well, Arielle, while I do The Unlit Lamp.

Actually that would be the basis for a really funny social project - get funding from some group to rent some huge if maybe unsightly hall, put in cots, and then make a special "Public Domain Camp". (Ignoring minor quibbles like number of rest rooms, Just make special changing rooms separate where people can spruce up without needing those other facilities.) Then you would have a special version of a library specializing in authors who have some or all of their catalog only legal in Life+50 places! : )

Bonus if you can get a resident literary professor to hold classes and help explain!

[TaoPhoenix]

Has anyone looked into international resale laws? You/someone could sell tracks for something like 1 cent per track, so we get all the goodness of the foreign copyright benefits and about $10 gets you almost all the tracks you can listen to.

The trick is they can only be *recorded* in those countries, but then the copies are just products, and let's say 1 cent per copy vanishes into costs somewhere, so the effect for listeners is nearly the same. It might be hard to say "this is in the public domain", but it's a step above "damn, I have to wait until I'm 50 before I can ever hear this author read".

[TriciaG]

That's not our purpose. Our mission is to make PD audiobooks. If someone wants to record and sell audiobooks, they're welcome to do so.

Heck, people sell OUR recordings (on eBay, etc.), and they're legally allowed to do so. We won't give them competition in that area.