Can descendants modify copyright of parent&#39;s work? According to this link if a work was published in 1969 then the copyright would be for 95 years after publication date. If the original author has died, is there any method for descendants to modify the copyright, specifically something like releasing the work into the public domain? Maybe related that would help answer the question would be this - can copyright be transferred to descendants? If it were transferred, e.g., in a will, does the original length of the copyright still apply, just that the ownership would be to the new owners?
Intellectual property is property and the owner can do all the things that can be done with property including selling it, gifting it and bequeathing it. It can also be licensed; the closest analogue to normal property being renting or lending it except you can license to more than one person at a time. The current owner can do anything the original owner could do with it. Transfer of ownership does not affect the duration or status of the rights at all.
The will is overridden by the new law. Suppose the owner had not died: then he would have to comply with the change in the law. When a person inherits property, they gain the right to that property which the originally had, and they do not gain any additional immunity to the usual obligation to obey the law.
You misunderstand the nature of copyright. Holding copyright allows you to decide how the work can be copied: there is no obligation on you to publish it if you don't want to. After your copyright expires you don't have to publish it either: the only thing that has changed is you can no longer prevent anyone making a copy. The lost works of Aristotle are in the public domain - if you can find them you can make as many copes as you like.
Not under US law Under the US copyright law, specifically 17 USC 203: a) Conditions for Termination.—In the case of any work other than a work made for hire, the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of a transfer or license of copyright or of any right under a copyright, executed by the author on or after January 1, 1978, otherwise than by will, is subject to termination under the following conditions: The conditions are somewhat complex, and I will not quote them here. The author or authors, or the heirs of the author or authors, or a majority of them, have the right to terminate copyright transfers an license grants. This termination must be effective on a date within a five-year period starting 35 years after the transfer or grant was made, or 35 years after publication. There must be a notice of intent to terminate, sent at least 2 and not more than 10 years before the effective date of termi\nation. Section 205 (a) (5) provides that: (5) Termination of the grant may be effected notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, including an agreement to make a will or to make any future grant. Section 205 (b) provides that: (b) Effect of Termination.—Upon the effective date of termination, all rights under this title that were covered by the terminated grants revert to the author, authors, and other persons owning termination interests ... ... (4) A further grant, or agreement to make a further grant, of any right covered by a terminated grant is valid only if it is made after the effective date of the termination. As an exception, however, an agreement for such a further grant may be made between the persons provided by clause (3) of this subsection and the original grantee or such grantee’s successor in title, after the notice of termination has been served as provided by clause (4) of subsection (a). Summary Under US copyright law the author, co-authors, or the heirs of the author(s), or a majority of them may cancel a license during a specific five-year period No provision in the license or other agreement may waive this right, or bind the author not to exercise it. Open source and copyleft licenses generally do not mention this legal right of the author. Derivative (modified) works created under a canceled license may continue to be used, but the right to create new derivative works is withdrawn. It is not clear how an author goes about sending the required notice when a work was distributed widely to the general public under a permissive license. Open source licenses have been around long enough that early license grants could be subject to such terminations. But I have found not news reports or court cases about such terminations or attempted terminations and their effects. Probably most authors of open source software will not want to terminate the licenses they once granted. But some may, and US law gives them the right to do so. Users of software or other protected content under such licenses should be aware of these termination rights.
No Copyright protects expressions of ideas but not ideas. A song with the words if a poem set to music would generally require the permission of the owner of the copyrighted poem. An instrumental score “inspired by a poem” would not remotely be using the same expression, or a derivative of, the poem. Titles are not subject to copyright and there are many books with identical titles. Try “The Gathering Storm” as a book title.
If you're in the USA, this almost certainly falls under fair use, or if you are in another jurisdiction, it almost certainly falls under an analogous exception for educational use. The fact that the excerpt is short contributes to this conclusion. You can also avoid having to rely even on these exceptions by choosing sources that are in the public domain. The specific date before which a work is guaranteed to be in the public domain depends, again, on your jurisdiction, but it's probably sometime in the early 20th century. For example, you're certainly on solid ground if you use Dickens.
Alice has been developing her own enhancements, and they're pretty similar to Bob's. Neither Alice nor Bob has copied the other's enhancements, so neither has violated the other's copyright in the enhancements. Whether that could be proved in court is another matter, of course, but since the original work is licensed under creative commons the question unlikely to arise in court. Would Alice be prevented from coming up with enhancements to her own game if other people could prove they thought of and released the idea first? No. Copyright does not protect ideas. It only protects a particular expression of those ideas from being copied. Theoretically, if two authors come up with identical 500-word descriptions of something and can establish that each did so independently, neither has a claim against the other. The practical problem there, of course, is that it would be impossible to prove such a thing. Could Alice outright claim Bob's "Adapted Material" because he developed it on her original work? Assuming that in publishing his adaptations Bob followed the terms of the creative commons license with respect to the original work, Alice's only claim would be that he copied her adaptations without following the terms of the license. If Bob can show that he did not do so, her claim would fail. In a comment, you wrote: Suppose Alice went ahead and intentionally, somehow provably ripped off Bob's "Adapted Material" because she liked the content so much, does Bob reserve any rights on his adaptation, or is Alice able to commercialize the work that Bob did in extending her original work? If we assume that Bob complied with the license of the original material, we know that he licensed his adaptations under "the identical terms," so Alice would be able to use Bob's adaptations under those terms for non-commercial purposes. Since the assumption here is that Alice provably copied something of Bob's, I think it is fairly clear that she would be liable for damages if she exploited that material commercially without paying royalties.
Not very novel What you are talking about is a derivative work. This is arguably the most famous example: It's an interesting example because Leonardo da Vinci did not have copyright in the original but Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia do have copyright in the derivative. Even though the changes are physically small, they are enough. A crucial factor in current legal analysis of derivative works is transformativeness, largely as a result of the Supreme Court's 1994 decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. The Court's opinion emphasized the importance of transformativeness in its fair use analysis of the parody of "Oh, Pretty Woman" involved in the Campbell case. In parody, as the Court explained, the transformativeness is the new insight that readers, listeners, or viewers gain from the parodic treatment of the original work. As the Court pointed out, the words of the parody "derisively demonstrat[e] how bland and banal the Orbison [Pretty Woman] song" is. For an author to have copyright in the derivative they must: Meet the (low) threshold of originality for copyright to exist. Make their derivative lawfully - either because they have permission or because their use falls under an exception to copyright like fair use or fair dealing. However, they do not have copyright in the original elements. For example, I could take the Mona Lisa and give her different clothes, a different background or a hat I will not be infringing their copyright. If I give her a different style of moustache? However, there is an issue with "I have copyright on the contents of the post" when you don't. Even if your work is derivative, you do not have copyright in the original parts and do not have the right to licence them. So, for example, this post is a derivative work of the Wikipedia page linked to above and I have copyright in my original contributions because: They meet the threshold of originality I have permission to make the derivative either through the Wikipedia licence or because my use is fair use. I can give Stack Exchange a licence for my work but I cannot give them a licence for the original work including, for example, the image and quote above. So, someone could quote my entire answer subject to the licence or fair work, but they couldn't copy just the image or quote.