Who owns the copyrights to Maragret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind? Or is i

Question:

Who owns the copyrights to Maragret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind? Or is it free domain?

just wonderin' :p

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I think you can rest assured that the copyright has been kept in force for such a book as Gone With The Wind. It was Margaret Mitchell's only published work, as far as I know, but the copyright to that work is probably still active through some second party.

I know that there was a court battle over infringement when the book "The Wind Done Gone" was published is 1997 -- maybe 1999. I'm not sure which. Doing the arithmetic says that, since the book first published in 1936, 61 or 62 years had elapsed. The old copyright law didn't last that long, so it must be held by another entity or an estate that has kept the copyright in force.

J.

http://www.jrichardjacobs.net

"The speed of the brain is inversely proportional to the speed of the mouth squared."

For the poster below, although you are quite correct in regard the arithmetic if referring to the current year of 2007, but I was referring to the date of the infingement suit, about 10 years ago. I'm sure your error was an honest mistake made in innocence. I am more than sufficiently educated in the realm of mathematics (if you'd care to investigate my history you'll know that). I'm also well aware of the copyright laws and the duration, which has changed substantially over the years -- they just raised that to 90 years and the cost has risen to $45 for paper copyright, and they are considering a reduced rate of $35 for electronic, though that is still unofficial. Ick!

Whatever entity maintains the copyright for this book will, in all likelihood, continue it in perpetuity -- it IS that valuable.