Just been to see Pride & Prejudice.

Got me thinking; Who currently owns the rights to Jane Austen's works? Is there a long line of descendants made rich by the constant re-telling of her stories?

What about Shakespeare? Who collects the money when his stuff is filmed over and over again.

How long can a family claim ownership of an ancestor's body of work?

I know relatives of Elvis look after his estate and benefit from his work. Same is true of Tolkien is it not?

Does anyone know?

(incidentally apart from the vast wealth, how cool would it be to be an Austen?)

copyright only lasts for so long, then the works become public.

I think in the UK it's 99 years. This differs from patents which are only valid for 25 years unless extended.

"Public domain refers to works which are no longer covered by copyright law. For example, the recent rash of movies adapting Jane Austen's novels may have something to do with the fact that no one holds the copyright to these works; they are in the public domain and no license fees have to be paid to the author or her heirs. Facts which are common knowledge such as the form of calendars are also considered to be public domain and may be copied and reproduced at will. "

from (http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/sept97/cew2.htm)

This is correct.

The main exceptions in the UK are the Bible and Peter Pan. The latter was kept in copyright, I believe, by a special Act of Parliament to provide an ongoing legacy to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

What is protected, though, is the copyright in a particular edition - so that if Penguin publish a book and keep it in print, they'll have copyright protection for that 'version' of the material. Other people can produce versions, but would strictly speaking have to rely on an older, oit of print 'source' for the basic material.

It's horribly fiddly!

Joe