According to Copinger and Skone James on Copyright, the leading professional text on the matter, it seems that the special exception to the rule against perpetual copyright granted to Peter Pan is unique within English law. Strictly speaking, as the authors note, this is not a true copyright but rather a statutory licence imposed on open-ended terms, but even so it's still the only one out there.
There's no reason why the copyright in the Police Code couldn't have been assigned to a charity (or probably its trustees) on the death of the author. Copyrights are hereditable, meaning you can leave them in your will to someone; alternatively you can assign them in writing. But that wouldn't change the point at which the work fell out of copyright.
The rules for when copyright expired for works created under the previous Copyright Acts can get rather complicated. However, if the author has been dead for more than 70 years then you can safely say that it is out of copyright by now.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:43 pm (UTC)There's no reason why the copyright in the Police Code couldn't have been assigned to a charity (or probably its trustees) on the death of the author. Copyrights are hereditable, meaning you can leave them in your will to someone; alternatively you can assign them in writing. But that wouldn't change the point at which the work fell out of copyright.
The rules for when copyright expired for works created under the previous Copyright Acts can get rather complicated. However, if the author has been dead for more than 70 years then you can safely say that it is out of copyright by now.