Perpetual copyright
Perpetual copyright, also known as indefinite copyright, is copyright that lasts indefinitely. Perpetual copyright arises either when a copyright has no finite term from outset, or when a copyright's original finite term is perpetually extended. The first of these two scenarios is highly uncommon, as the current laws of all countries with copyright statutes set a standard limit on the duration, based either on the date of creation/publication, or on the date of the creator's death. Exceptions have sometimes been made, however, for unpublished works. Usually, special legislation is required, granting a perpetual copyright to a specific work.
In many countries, moral rights, which may be covered under the copyright law, can last perpetually.
United Kingdom[edit]
The Copyright Act of 1775 established a type of perpetual copyright which allowed "the Two Universities in England, the Four Universities in Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster, and Winchester to hold in Perpetuity their Copy Right in Books given to or bequeathed to the said Universities and Colleges for the advancement of useful learning and other purposes of education."[21] All provisions granting copyright in perpetuity were abolished by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, but under transitional arrangements these rights do not fully expire until 2039.[22] Separately, the Crown retains rights under the royal prerogative to control printing of the Authorised Version of the Bible, and of the Book of Common Prayer.
J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan, although out of copyright, is covered by special legislation which grants Great Ormond Street Hospital a right to royalties in perpetuity. Specifically, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that the hospital trustees are entitled to a royalty "in respect of any public performance, commercial publication or communication to the public of the whole or any substantial part of [the play] or an adaptation of it."[23] This law does not apply to earlier works which feature the Peter Pan character, such as The Little White Bird and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
United States[edit]
In the United States, perpetual copyright is prohibited by its Constitution, which provides that copyright is "for limited times". However, it neither specifies how long that term can be, nor does it impose any restriction on the number of times the term may be extended. Indeed, since the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1790, copyright term has been successively extended by Congress on four occasions, retroactively extending the terms of any copyrights still in force. Following the enactment of the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998, a coalition of plaintiffs led by publisher Eric Eldred argued that this act and a previous extension of the copyright term in the 1970s had created a de facto "perpetual copyright on the installment plan". This argument was rejected by the US Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft, which held that there was no limit to how many times the term of copyright may be extended by Congress, so long as it is still a limited term at the time of each extension.[24]
State and common law had granted perpetual copyright in certain special cases not covered by federal copyright law. Sound recordings made before 1972 were under the jurisdiction of state copyright laws[25] which provided perpetual, common-law protection;[26] these laws were pre-empted by the Hatch–Goodlatte Act. Prior to 1 January 1978, when the Copyright Act of 1976 came into effect, unpublished works were protected by common law, which recognized perpetual copyright in these works for as long as they remained unpublished.[27] The 1976 Copyright Act exerted federal jurisdiction over unpublished works for the first time and all copyrights in these works were assigned a fixed term even if they remain unpublished.
In the case Golan v. Holder (2012), the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could release works from the public domain to submit them again to the protection of copyright, without violating the Constitution.
Former Soviet Union[edit]
In the former Soviet Union, under the 1961 Fundamentals, copyrights held by legal entities such as companies were defined to be perpetual; if a company was reorganized, its legal successor entity took over the copyrights, and if a company ceased to exist, the copyrights passed to the state.[30]