Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida

Typically, the duration of copyright is the whole life of the creator plus fifty to a hundred years from the creator's death, or a finite period for anonymous or corporate creations.

Mr. Duvalsaint speaks to the copyright laws as they exist after 1976; before that time, copyright was a whole different animal. Mr. Thomas' play was written in 1892 by a foreign national. It was first performed in London beginning in February, 1892. Thus, this work was published abroad before 1978, which is the Magic Date.

If the work was published in full compliance with the US copyright law of the time, copyright expired 95 years after the publication date (if its publication did not comply with US copyright law of the time, it's been in the public domain since its publication). It's been more than 95 years since 1892, so my take is that copyright has expired on this work.

It may be worth a letter to the publisher asking them under what theory they continue to charge royalties for performances. Feel free to contact me if you'd like an attorney to handle that for you. 518-371-4599.

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