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5 January 2015Copyright

The Scream painting and James Bond books in public domain

Copyright protected works including books by James Bond creator Ian Fleming and artist Edvard Munch’s The Scream painting have entered into the public domain this year.

As Munch died in 1944, copyright protection for his work will expire under the ‘life plus 70-year’ term of protection, which is in force in jurisdictions including the EU and US.

Copyright owners such as Fleming who died in 1964 will also lose protection in countries with a 'life plus 50-year' copyright rule.

Norway-born Munch painted The Scream in 1893, a work that has gained worldwide recognition. It was the part inspiration for the design of the ‘Scream’ mask used by the serial killer in the Scream horror film franchise.

The work of Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, famed for his Haystacks series, is also now in the public domain in countries with a ‘life plus 70-year’ term of protection.

The full list of works to fall out of copyright this year is included on the Public Domain Review, a website that features out-of-copyright works.

Works of artists who died in 1964 have become public in countries that have a ‘life plus 50-year’ copyright term, including several African and Asian nations as well as Canada and New Zealand.

Among that list is UK born Fleming, a former journalist who began writing the Bond books in 1952 before dying of a heart attack in 1964. Fleming’s Bond creations, the first of which was published in 1953, include 12 novels and two short story compilations.

Included in the 1944 list is French author Antione de Saint-Exupery, the creator of The Little Prince. But, under French copyright law, Saint-Exupery is treated as a ‘mort pour la France’ (died for France) and is consequently granted an extra 30 years of copyright protection there.

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