Tim May wrote:
This is misleading. There is much debate about ownership of the copyright, whether it has expired (as would normally be the case after roughly 70 years, whether the licenses sold to other publishers are valid, etc.).
it's been changed to 70 years after death of author recently, at least in the US. that would make the expire date 2015.
Quite odd that the publisher Houghton Mifflin would say they are donating all royalties since 1979 if in fact no copies have been published since 1945!
Even more odd if some of us have copies in our libraries which were published much more recently than 1945.
here's what I wrote:
only copies printed before 1945 are actually legal,
am I missing the link between "legal" and "existing", or did you imagine it?