How soon is now?: Bloomsbury at 100

James Joyce's monumental work, Ulysses, reaches its 100th anniversary of the fictional walk described through Bloomsbury on June 16, 2004.

However, there has been controversy surrounding the celebration, with the grandson of the author threatening to sue the government and the National Library for the display of Joyce manuscripts.

The Oireachtas (the Irish Legislature) passed emergency legislation, The Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2004, to protect the National Library's display of 500 pages of Joyce manuscripts.

According to out-law.com:

The difficulty relates to an EU Directive of 1993, which extended the length of copyright protection for most works to 70 years from the date of death of the author and, for corporations, to 70 years from the start of the year in which the work was created.

Prior to the Directive, copyright protection lasted for only 50 years. For the Joyce estate, it expired in 1991.

Compounding the problems, the Irish law implementing the Directive is unclear as to whether the mere exhibition of copyrighted material in a public place infringes copyright. In order to allow the exhibition to go ahead, the Irish Parliament ... therefore rush[ed] through a draft bill that states:

“For the avoidance of doubt, no infringement of any right created by this Part in relation to an artistic or literary work occurs by reason of the placing on display the work, or a copy thereof, in a place or premises to which members of the public have access."

The controversy has prevented public readings of Ulysses.

As one of the most important modern works of literature, if anything should be in the intellectual "commons" after almost one hundred years, it should be this work.

This case also demonstrates the difficulty for the public when works are "copyright ghosts" -- works that have entered the public domain and then have their copyright restored. Ulysses (until this latest Act), like Peter Pan in the UK had entered the public domain and then was yanked back. By "ghosting" copyright, in essence it leads to perpetual copyright -- there is a lack of incentive to take the time and energy to create new editions and transformative works such as plays -- if through a legislative act copyright can be restored at any time.