COMING OUT OF COPYRIGHT ...

Some jurisdictions employ the standard Berne Union measure of "life plus 50 years" for the duration of copyright; others employ the European Union's "life plus 70 years" formula. This means that 1 January 2005 will see the entry into the public domain of a vast number of works. To give you some idea what you can -- depending on the country -- now copy or perform with impunity, the IPKat has compiled this short but helpful list.

People who died in 1954

* William R Inge: the Gloomy Dean, who made it to the cover of Time magazine in November 1924 and who said: “it is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion”.

* Charles Ives: prolific American composer, despite spending his professional career in the insurance sector.

* Werner Bischof: Swiss photographer who specialised in post-War scenes.

* Alan Turing: mathematician, philosopher, genius and one of the founding fathers of computer science

Johnny Ace: news of his death caused a great rush for his singles

* Johnny Ace: R & B star who killed himself playing Russian Roulette.


People who died in 1934

* Frederick Delius, Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst: a trilogy of English composers. Delius wrote “On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring”, Elgar penned the Enigma Variations and the Pomp and Circumstances Marches (one of which is the tune for “Land of Hope and Glory”, while Holst’s The Planets are one of the most popular pieces in the modern concert repertoire.

Gustav Holst: The Planets made him a star

* Chayim Nachman Bialik: Hebrew poet, translator and story-teller

Merpel says: “This is a pathetically small collection and it doesn’t contain any women. Perhaps some of our readers would like to post extra names and details on the Comment facility below”.