Q: What is the copyright status of currently unpublished letters and manuscripts?
United States of America
Unpublished works are accorded federal copyright protection for a fixed term: the life of the author plus 70 years. In the case of a currently unpublished work created anywhere in the world before 1 January 1978 and not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, the work is protected for the author’s life plus 70 years or until 31 December 2002, whichever is longer. This means that works by Joyce that were not published during his lifetime, and were not published posthumously at any time before 31 December 2002, will enter the public domain in the U.S. on 1 January 2012.
United Kingdom
Works that were unpublished at the author’s death and remained so until 1 August 1989 are protected by copyright in the U.K. for 50 years from 1 January 1990, or until 31 December 2039, after which they will enter the U.K. public domain.
Ireland
The duration of copyright in unpublished works is somewhat ambiguous under the present law of the Republic of Ireland. A government-appointed Copyright Review Committee noted in March 2012 that the Irish legislature had intended to limit the copyright in all unpublished literary works to the author’s life plus 70 years. Efforts are currently being made to clarify the law to conform it to that intention.
Canada
Unpublished works are protected for the duration of the author’s life plus 50 years.
Australia
It appears that copyright in “undisclosed” literary, dramatic, and musical works can endure perpetually in Australia (though there are provisions that permit the publication of unpublished works found in libraries and archives when the owner of the copyright is not known). A work is “disclosed” if it is published, performed in public, broadcast, or where records of the work are offered or exposed for sale to the public, whereupon the copyright term is 70 years from the year of public disclosure.
N.B.: it is important to understand, with respect to the countries discussed in this section, that photoreproductions or facsimiles of manuscripts that have been published with the copyright holder’s authorization – such as the James Joyce Archive – are considered to be published, not unpublished, works for copyright purposes. Thus, the copyright terms that govern ordinary published works, as well as fair use and fair dealing as those doctrines apply to published works, also apply to the Archive and other Estate-approved publications of photoreproduced or facsimile Joyce manuscripts. In sum, the same rules apply to such publications as to other published texts.
Updated April 2012