Article Published in 1931, Author Died

[chance1234]

I am a bit confused about whether the 1956 act supersedes the 1911 act.

The article in question was in a publication published in 1931, and the author behind that article died in 1964.

From what I gather, under the 1911 act it would be 50 years after the author's death
and the 1956 act, 70 years?

Which applies here ?

kind regards

[AndyJ]

Hi chance1234 and welcome to the forum,

You are right that the 1911 Copyright Act set the duration of copyright for a literary work as the lifetime of the author plus 50 years from the end of the year of his or her death. The 1956 Copyright Act maintained the same duration, as did the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act. The extra 20 years on the post mortem part was added in 1995 thanks to an EU Directive which was intened to standardize the copyright term in all EU member states. UK laws frequently don't have retrospective effect, but the EU Directive meant that any copyright term that was already running at the time it came into force (on 1 July 1995) would automatically be extended. Since this author died in 1964, his copyright term would have been caught by the 70 year term, and won't end until 1 January 2035. Unfortunately although we are no longer in the EU, this is one of the UK laws which remain unchanged after Brexit.