Copyright of I burn Paris--Final answer

[Janice Pilch]

Dear Bora,

I apologize, there was a fatal error in the message I sent
earlier today. Felin was right about the work being in the
public domain in France. The reason is that the French
copyright of life of the author plus 50 years expired in 1989
or 1991, and thus the work was not eligible for the amendment
that took effect in France on July 1, 1995 extending the term
to life plus 70. The work remained in the public domain in
France.

Because of this, the work could not have been restored in the
U.S. But if the proper registration/renewals were filed in
the U.S. over the years, the work could still be protected in
this country through 2024.

So the situation for the orignal French work and the Polish
version is the same: possibly still protected in the U.S. if
if the proper registration/renewals were filed. I don't think
there is a great chance that the work was registered/renewed,
but you never know. I think that is the final answer on this
one.

Sincerely,

Janice

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:43:54 -0500
>From: Bora Chung <bochung at INDIANA.EDU>
>Subject: [SEELANGS] Copyright of I burn Paris
>To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>
>Update:
>1. The Polish copyright law says, as far as I understand,
that the copyright is
>valid for 70 years after the work was published. So I think
I can translate the
>1929 and/or the 1931 version. The 1931 version is complete
with all three parts
>and I haven't found any big difference between this one and
the 1974 Czytelnik
>edition.
>
>2. 1929 and 1931 editions have the same preface written by
Juliusz Kaden-
>Bandrowski. In fact they look identical, except that the
1929 edition is
>incomplete and the 1931 edition is complete. I wonder how
that happened.
>
>3.The first page of 1931 version says the story was
originally published for
>the first time in French in installments. That doesn't mean
it was originally
>written in French, though. If there was a translater from
Polish to French, I
>wonder who that was, just out of curiousity.
>
>4. Nothing about T. Ordon or the Russian translater so far.
In fact the preface
>to the 1930 Russian version is quite interesting but it's
anonymous.
>
>Bora Chung
>Slavic department
>Indiana University
>bochung at indiana.edu
>
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----------------------------------------
Janice T. Pilch, Assistant Professor of Library Administration
Acting Head, Acquisitions, Slavic and East European Library
Librarian for South Slavic Studies and Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
Tel. (217) 244-9399  E-mail: pilch at uiuc.edu

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