[Andrew999]

Tod Claymore (British author Hugh Clevely) died in 1964 so is out of copyright in Canada but I’ve yet to see any of his novels made available to the public domain. To me, this illustrates one of the problems with our overly restrictive one-size-fits-all copyright laws. Top-ranking authors and characters continue to be reprinted and they earn money for their publishers up to seventy years after the author’s death in most countries, that’s fair enough, I guess – but the much greater number of lower-ranking authors never get reprinted and by the time seventy years have passed, they are pretty much forgotten – their work lost forever.

How much more sensible if there were a secondary rule which said that if a work has not been republished in the last – shall we say – thirty years, then it automatically falls into the public domain. For magazines and comic books, the rule could be similar – thirty years after publication, without any reprints or inclusion in collections in the meantime, then the works enter the public domain. Just imagine how much that change of rule would enrich our living cultural heritage without depriving any publishers of money as they weren’t going to reprint the material anyway.

Do you agree?

Mystery at the Mardi Gras is a well-plotted and decent enough yarn – reminded me a bit of Ross MacDonald with shifting loyalties, unusual sets and a strong heroine in support. As always with SDL, I was very impressed with the pencils by ???? – take a look at page 12 as an example or top frame page 15, great depth.

Link to the book: Super Detective Library 104 - The Mystery at the Mardi-Gras