Earlier
this month, the Canada chapter of free ebook site Project Gutenberg
announced that it had released all seven of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia
novels into the public domain. Users from anywhere in the world can
download versions of the books to their ebook readers or tablet
computers.
Go south of the border, and suddenly the Lewis books aren’t public domain anymore. In the US, you need to buy them.
This
peculiarity stems from a somewhat complex and inconsistent way in which
copyright durations are enforced all over the world.
But
it also means that the enterprising book lover, equipped with a
generous travel budget and a capacious tablet computer, can hop around
the world taking advantage of these different durations to download
books by some of their favorite authors. Completely for free.
I realized this earlier this month when I went hunting for some more of Josephine Tey’s work. Her whodunnit book, The Daughter of Time, is rated among the finest crime novels
ever written, certainly one of the finest I’ve ever read. I go back to
it at least once a month to reread its opening passages.
However,
I’d never read any of Tey’s other works. So last week, hoping to save
some money, I went online and searched to see if there were any
Josephine Tey anthologies in ebook form that I could purchase and
download to my Kindle.
One
link to led to another and there I was on an Australian free ebook
website that had much of Tey’s work available for free download. At
first it seemed a little dubious. I was under the impression that Tey’s
work was still under copyright all over the world. None of her works
appear on the definitive international website for out-of-copyright
ebooks: Project Gutenberg. Tey died in 1952, and usually books pass into the public domain 70 years after the author’s death.
But
this wasn’t some dubious Aussie pirate website. This was an ebooks
website hosted by the University of Adelaide. It turns out that
Australian copyright laws functioned a little differently from those of
the UK and the US. Current Aussie laws also require a 70-year wait
before releasing books into the public domain. But only if the author
died after 1954. (Tey died in 1952.) Following a Free Trade Agreement
with America signed in 2005, all books written by authors who died
before 1955 are now officially out of copyright.
Thus books by authors such as Josephine Tey and Algernon Blackwood are out of copyright in Australia—but not in the UK, US, and several other countries where you still have to pay for them.
Turns
out such inconsistencies exist all over the world. Which is perhaps
why, in addition to the global Project Gutenberg website there are
separate PG sites for several countries such as Australia and Canada.
Simply because the definition of “public domain” means different things
in different countries.
The University of Pennsylvania has a comprehensive analysis of copyright laws and deadlines here. The
numbers get a little bit confusing, but the enterprising book lover
should not be deterred. With a generous travel allowance and an iPad,
one could easily hop all over the world obtaining a generous collection
of free public domain ebooks. But which book markets to visit, and which
to avoid?
The best countries in the world, according to the UPenn analysis are:
- Seychelles and Sudan. Both impose duration of life of the author plus 25 years. If you’re thinking of hosting a public domain ebooks website, these are the countries to do it in.
- Iran and Yemen impose life + 30.
- Canada and a whole host of other countries limit it at life plus 50 years.
- Russia, like Australia, appear to have released book by authors who died before 1955 into the public domain.
And
the worst? Mexico. In 2003 Mexico extended copyright protection to the
life of the author plus 100 years. So the works of Josephine Tey won’t
become public domain in Mexico for another 38 years.
Though
if you are a Mexican crime novel lover, please pause before pouncing on
Australian websites. As the University of Adelaide website reminds:
“However, works may still be copyright in other countries. If copyright
in the work still exists in the country from which you are accessing
this website, it may be illegal for you to download the work. It is your
responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country.”
