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�.