New works in the South African Public Domain

Yesterday, the 1st of January 2010, was the day on which new works entered the public domain, at least in South Africa.

Why the 1st of January? For musical, literary and artistic creations (what copyright law calls ‘works’) the term of copyright in South Africa is the life of the author plus fifty years. The fifty years is actually a bit more than than fifty years, because it ends at the end of the year on which the author died. As a result, the 1st of January every year is the day on which new works enter the public domain, or least should enter the public domain if copyright terms are not extended again.

How it works is this. If an author died during 1959 then in South Africa, that author’s works enter the public domain in South Africa. It doesn’t matter whether that author wrote in an another country which has retrospectively extended the copyright term, such as Germany, in South Africa you are free to copy, change and distribute the entire work.

If an author died before 1959 then her work is already in the public domain. If the author died after 1959 or is still alive then the work is still in copyright, unless the work was published pseudonymously or anonymously and the author’s actual identity was not revealed, in which case the copyright expired after fifty years. For photographs, sound recordings, films and computer programs copyright expires after fifty years.

Wallace MacLean identifies an interesting mix of works which entered the public domain yesterday including: “Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens; Anglo-American novelist Raymond Chandler; British sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein; and American architect Frank Lloyd Wright”.

Although some of those authors are from the United States their work will not become available to their countrymen today. Prof James Boyle of Duke explains: “What is entering the public domain in the United States? Sadly, we will have nothing to celebrate this January 1st. Not a single published work is entering the public domain this year. Or next year. Or the year after. Or the year after that. In fact, in the United States, no publication will enter the public domain until 2019.”

This is because lobbyists in the United States were able to persuade Congress to retrospectively extend the term of copyright. Since then those extensions have been vigorously exported to the rest of the world. South Africa however resisted pressure to extend copyright and as a result did not enter into a so called “Free Trade Agreement” with the United States.

As a result we have new work enriching the public domain.

Some South African artists who died in 1959 whose work now enriches the public domain:

Artists:

Cyril  Manganyi, Nicolaas Martitz, Keith Calder, Jane Alexander, George  Velapi Mazimba, Jacobus Kloppers, Moses Tladi

Authors: Lionel Forman (You Can Hang for Treason)

Architects: David Strachan Haddon

The first Prime Minster of “Grand Apartheid”  D F Malan also died in 1959, and his book “Afrikaner Volkseenheid en my ervaringe op die pad daarheen” is now in the public domain. While this may not seem cause for celebration it is necesary for democracies to be able to freely discuss ideas, even or perhaps especially of those who constitute themselves as enemies of democracy.

If you are aware of any other South African artists, musicians, architects and authors who died in 1959 please list them in the comments.