Copyright law is one of those screwy things that keeps changing and basically just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (see HERE to read my yammerings about the British copyright on the King James version of the Bible). Until 1978, the copyright laws of the United States held a work under copyright for 28 years, with the option to extend for a second 28 years, for a maximum of 56 years. But then it changed, and now copyright is for 70 years after the date of the author’s death (which would mean that APR issue V1N1, which was published in 1999 or so, won’t enter the public domain until *at* *least* 2082, since I ain’t dead yet, and assuming Obamacare spends unlimited taxpayer dollars to stretch my life out for another, oh, sixty years, it won’t become public domain until 2142, meaning V1N1 will have been under copyright for 143 years).
Duke U has published a list of works that, had the law not changed in 1978, would be entering the public domain in 2012. Included here is the Disney movie “Lady and the Tramp,” James Dean’s movie “Rebel Without a Cause,” and Isaac Asimov’s “The End of Eternity” (which, due to the change in the law, now won’t enter the public domain until 2051, since works pubisihed between 1950 and 1963 were, in 1973, retconned to have copyright for 95 years).
Under the pre-1978 copyright law, Duke estimates that 85% of the works published in 1983 would be entering the public domain this year.