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What would happen to music that is currently say 60 years old? That would have been copyright-free for 10 years and all of a sudden it is under copyright again?

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Once the copyright has lapsed, it has lapsed. Unless they did something special beyond simply extending the period then there's no way to renew the copyright.

I'm not sure about this case, but that's not always been true everywhere, historically. In the UK, at least, when books were extended to life + 70 that was retroactive for books originally published there. It was not retroactive in the USA, however (and more sensibly, I would say - whatever your views on term extension).

This has affected me and my business in the past - see http://blog.th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus-availabl... (halfway down, "A Note on Copyright" has an explanation of this oddity).

That's actually quite the oddity. It seems to go against conventional wisdom (but then when has the British Government done anything wise lately?) and copyright law itself in that once copyright lapses it is supposed to be non-ownable from that point on.

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