Copyright Questioning

[Peter Graham]

Originally Posted by murphy

Yes, copyrights can be inherited, passed on and assigned. Otherwise, why make them valid for 50 (US), 70 (UK), 90 (France) years after the death of the author.

Fair enough - I stand corrected!

I know that a writer can assign copyright to their publisher, but I wasn't sure what happened after death when there was no specific, earlier written assignment. I suspect that personal representatives probably could bring an action on behalf of the deceased writer without there needing to be an assignment of that copyright to anyone living, although from what you are saying it can be inherited anyway, at least until the 70 or whatever years runs out.

Regards,

Peter

[murphy]

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

Fair enough - I stand corrected!

I know that a writer can assign copyright to their publisher, but I wasn't sure what happened after death when there was no specific, earlier written assignment. I suspect that personal representatives probably could bring an action on behalf of the deceased writer without there needing to be an assignment of that copyright to anyone living, although from what you are saying it can be inherited anyway, at least until the 70 or whatever years runs out.

Regards,

Peter

I'm pretty sure that there are specific laws in each country that cover this. At least there were for music copyrights and I'm assuming that the laws would be the same for novels and such.