Canada is officially extending copyright protection from Life + 50 to 70

[Sallen112]

See here: https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/results.php?lang=en (PC Number: 2022-1219)

On November 17th, 2022,

Order Fixing December 30, 2022 as the Day on which Division 16 of Part 5 of the BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2022, No. 1 COMES INTO FORCE in order to extend certain terms of copyright protection from 50 years to 70 years after the life of the author.

Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, under section 281 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1, chapter 10 of the Statutes of Canada, 2022, fixes December 30, 2022 as the day on which Division 16 of Part 5 of that Act comes into force.

Sur recommandation du ministre de l’Industrie et du ministre du Patrimoine canadien et en vertu de l’article 281 de la Loi no 1 d’exécution du budget de 2022, chapitre 10 des Lois du Canada (2022), Son Excellence la Gouverneure générale en conseil fixe au 30 décembre 2022 la date d’entrée en vigueur de la section 16 de la partie 5 de cette loi.

This means that starting on January 1st, 2023, there will be no new composers or contributors (arrangers, librettists, etc.) who died 1972 and later from the next 20 years until 2043 entering the public domain, but all composers who already entered the public domain, 1971 and earlier, will stay in the Public domain because the extension is non-retroactive.

For IMSLP, in light of the new copyright law changes in Canada, we will be moving all new composers who will be entering the Public domain in Life + 50 countries to the Hong Kong server sometime in 2023 for new composers that enter the public domain there, but the main server will still be in Canada. However, it is not going to be right away (or even starting on January 1st, 2023) because we do not have the server submission system setup yet to take on 1972 death composers so unfortunately, we will have to reject such files from users until the submission system for Hong Kong's Server is setup to take on these submissions at a To Be Announced date. However, for the United States for works that were first published before 1928 starting in 2023, this is unchanged and we will continue accepting files as normal, but any files first published after 1927 will be rejected just to be clear.

If they did not fix the date before the end of this year, then this extension would not of happened. However, because of fixing the date before the end of the year to extend the copyright law in Canada, the extension will now be in effect starting in 2023.

[Fugalicious]

Thanks for staying on top of this. Happy that IMSLP is finding a way to allow users to submit works from composers who died after 1971. Hopefully contributors in life + 50 countries will be able to get us Duke Ellington and Shostakovich in a few years

[TheGrassGuy]

*censored* YOU DISNEY

Anyways... I hope the Hong Kong server thing works soon

At least we managed to get Stravinsky out of the darkness in time.

[Eric]

Of course, the copyright date for composers who died after 1971, assuming the law goes into effect, is life+70 for anyone but time travelers, as no time between this year and next will also be between 2023 and 2043 (say) at the same time - the public domain status of any given piece at this specific time should be considered deathdate+71 as of now if it would be considered so next year, for what I was going to say were obvious reasons but.

[Sallen112]

*censored* YOU DISNEY

Anyways... I hope the Hong Kong server thing works soon

At least we managed to get Stravinsky out of the darkness in time.

It mainly has to do with the new USMCA (United States Mexico-Canada Agreement) that got passed 4 years ago and one provision in the agreement was for Canada to extend Copyright from 50 to 70 years. Mainly the United States pushed for this increase because they "wanted" in their terms to standardize the Copyright Life minimum to 70 years according to them, however there is no such thing as a Life + Standard anywhere, its what they have chosen based on the life expectancy of citizens in their countries. Its already too long of an extension, 50 years was already more than enough of an extension!

[Eric]

No disagreement there. As a (still…) “modern” composer born in 1874 pointed out, benefits of copyright began going more to the publishers than the artists already early during his lifetime…