Works by Evelyn Waugh, D.T. Suzuki, Margaret Sanger, and other creators entering the public domain in Canada in 2017

In Canada, copyright protection for most types of works lasts for 50 years after the end of the year in which the creator dies. When copyright expires, those works enter the public domain, meaning there are no longer any restrictions on their use.

Works in the public domain can be used by anyone, in any way, without permission or payment. Please note that in other countries (e.g., the United States), copyright may last for a different term, so works in the public domain in Canada will not necessarily be free from copyright elsewhere.

Works created by authors, artists, musicians and other creators who died in 1966 entered the public domain on January 1, 2017. These include:

• Elizabeth Arden (businessperson)
• Homi J. Bhabha (nuclear physicist)
• Jean-Yves Bigras (film director)
• Pauline Boty (artist)
• Lenny Bruce (comedian)
• Ernest Burgess (sociologist)
• Walt Disney* (producer, animator) *Only works created by Walt Disney himself are now in the public domain; this does not extend to all Disney productions.
• Alberto Giacometti (artist)
• Marguerite Higgins (journalist, war correspondent)
• Mississippi John Hurt (musician)
• Margaret Sanger (birth control activist)
• D.T. Suzuki (Buddhist scholar, author)
• Evelyn Waugh (author)

More information about authors and creators whose works entered the public domain in Canada this year is available at 1966 deaths (Wikipedia) and Class of 2017 (The Public Domain Review).

For more information about the public domain, and copyright in general, visit Copyright at SFU or contact the Copyright Office (email).

Image credits: Book cover, Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future by Evelyn Waugh. London: Chapman and Hall, 1953; Mississippi John Hurt by Library of Congress, 1964; Book cover, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki. New York: Grove Press, 1994; Elizabeth Arden by Alan Fisher, New York World-Telegram and the Sun, 1939; Film poster, Les Lumieres de ma ville by Jean-Yves Bigras, 1950; Birth Control Review by Margaret Sanger, 1919.