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I'm writing a textbook and I'd like to include an old paper from Alan Turing as an appendix. Searches on Google turn up copies of the paper, but I cannot seem to find anything explicitly indicating if it's public domain or not.

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Copyright restrictions are for the author/creator's lifetime, plus 70 years after their death. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing He died in 1954, so add 70 to that and you get his work under copyright until 2024.

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That's assuming that he registered the copyright. I'm not sure how the rules worked back then, but there's a distinct possibility that he didn't intend it to be copyrighted in the first place; it was an academic paper. – agent154 Jan 31 at 21:55
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How does this change when you get into international law? i.e., when is a British author in the public domain in country X? – Neil Fein♦ Feb 1 at 1:40
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The issue is not whether he "registered" copyright (that is NOT required under the Berne Convention) but whether he explicitly released or assigned the copyright that applies automatically. – Fortiter Feb 1 at 2:30
@Fortiter: Not quite: Copyright applies automatically at the moment of fixing the work on a medium, but it expires a certain amount of time after... I don't remember if that or author's death, UNLESS expressly prolonged by the copyright holder after a specific period of time with an appropriate organization, which then prolongs it to that mentioned 70 years after their death. (C) on works not registered prolonged like that expires much faster. I can look up the details if you need but that still doesn't change the fact we don't know if Turing or his descendants prolonged the copyright or not. – SF. Feb 1 at 7:42
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@SF: Registration is convenient in the case of legal action <copyrightservice.co.uk/register/how_registration_helps>; but is not required and does not alter the extent of protection (only its enforcement). – Fortiter Feb 1 at 8:00
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