How did Winnie-the-Pooh enter public american public domain if its a book published in the UK?

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Winnie-the-Pooh entered public domain in the USA, but how is it possible when the book wasn’t even in the USA?

Does that mean the USA puts any book from the world in their public domain as long as it has been more than 90 years? Do USA law can really have that power across other jurisdictions?

Like if a country has a law protecting their books for more than 100 years, seem unfair that America can suddenly break that copyright.

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Note that copyright terms are much longer now. According to law at the time it was published, UK copyright would have expired in 2006 (author’s life + 50) and US copyright in 1954 (publication + 28).

Anonymous 0 Comments

>Like if a country has a law protecting their books for more than 100 years, seem unfair that America can suddenly break that copyright.

Well.. a country could completely remove their copyright laws and make everything public domain.

You would probably not publish in this country then. But the US for example would not allow anything that is copyrighted within their laws to be exported from this country.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Being in the public domain is the default status. “In the public domain” just means “not copyrighted”.

It was published in the US so naturally it was copyrighted in the US.

Copyright laws vary from country to country. UK copyright and US copyright aren’t the same. The reason articles talk about Winnie the Pooh going public domain in the US is because it isn’t public domain in the UK yet.

Sometimes it’s the other way around. Sherlock Holmes became copyright free in the UK a while before he was fully copyright free in the US.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Laws only apply to where there is jurisdiction. This is true with every law, copyright is no different.

The copyright laws of the USA only apply to entities in the USA, just as those of any other country would apply to their respective countries.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It was published in the US and the UK. When you agree to participate in the market, you are agreeing to abide by local laws

>Winnie-the-Pooh was published on 14 October 1926 by Methuen & Co. in England and E. P. Dutton in the United States.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh_(book)#:~:text=Winnie%2Dthe%2DPooh%20was%20published,States%20on%201%20January%202022.