Public Domain Day 2020

In Canada, January 1st of each year is the day that new works enter the public domain after their term of copyright protection has expired.  At present, the term of copyright protection in Canada is the life of the author/creator plus an additional 50 years after their death.  That means that the works of authors/creators who died in 1969 become part of the public domain in Canada on January 1, 2020. 

Determining whether a work is in the public domain is not always as simple as finding the date of the death of the author/creator of the work.  To assist with some of the trickier cases, the Copyright Office has recently updated its Canadian Copyright Term Flowchart.  The latest version is available here.