Project:The copyright status of Wittgenstein’s works: Difference between revisions

{{p center|By {{person link|Michele Lavazza}}<ref group="N">The author would like to thank Dr Jasmin Trächtler, Mr David Chandler, and Mr Javier Arango for reviewing this text. Additionally, he would like to extend sincere gratitude to Dr Nicolas Bell, the Librarian of Trinity College, who provided insightful comments on a draft of this essay; to Prof Alois Pichler of the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, the conversations with whom helped give this essay its final shape; and to Dr Simone Aliprandi, legal expert and copyright specialist, for his consultancy.</ref>}}

{{p center|29 December 2022}}

29 April 2021 was the 70th anniversary of Wittgenstein’s death and on 1 January 2022 Wittgenstein’s writings entered the public domain in those countries where the copyright term is 70 years P.M.A. (''post mortem auctoris'', i.e., “after the author’s death”). This includes most European countries, much of Africa, Asia and Oceania, and most Latin American Countries. In some jurisdictions, including many African and Asian countries, as well as Canada, where the copyright term is 50 years P.M.A., Wittgenstein’s works were already in the public domain. In some other countries, such as the United States, where copyright laws are rather different than in most other countries and determining the copyright status of a work is not simply a matter of counting the years that have elapsed since the author’s death, some of Wittgenstein’s works are still copyrighted; there, it is still Trinity that counts as the copyright holder.

<p style="text-align: center; color: #54595d;">This map provides a simplified overview of the duration of copyright terms worldwide. Please note that in some countries, for example the US, copyright laws are more complex than elsewhere and knowing that a given number of years has passed since an author’s death is not sufficient for determining the copyright status of their works; in the US, in particular, the publication date of a work often influences its copyright status.<ref name="hirtle-chart">See ''{{plainlink|[https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain Copyright Term and the Public Domain]}}'', Cornell University Library, retrieved 30 July 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220711133814/https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain archived URL]}}).</ref> Moreover, even in those cases where a country’s copyright term is a definite period after the author’s death, exceptions may extend copyright further; in France, for example, where the duration of the copyright term is 70 years P.M.A., copyright lasts longer for those authors who died at war and officially count as ''morts pour la France''—among them, famously, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.<ref>See ''{{plainlink|[https://www.sne.fr/editeur-et-auteur/duree-des-droits-dauteurs/ Durée des droits d’auteur]}}'', Syndicat national de l’édition, 2 Novembre 2017, retrieved 30 July 2022 ({{plainlink|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220730141446/https://www.sne.fr/editeur-et-auteur/duree-des-droits-dauteurs/ archived URL]}}).</ref></p>

However, Ms-172, Ms-173, Ms-174, Ms-175, and Ms-176, in which Wittgenstein’s remarks on certainty are contained and from which the 1969 edition was compiled, had previously appeared in the Cornell edition (see [[Private:The copyright status of Wittgenstein's works#Bemerkungen über die Farben|§ ''Bemerkungen über die Farben'']]). ''Über Gewißheit'' must therefore be considered to have the US as its country of origin and it is in the public domain there because it was published without complying with the formalities that were necessary at the time.

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