What is the EU or UK copyright status of the RWS and PKT?
A. Since Smith died in 1951, the RWS deck would not be public domain in the EU and UK until 2021 if she was acknowledged as the author of the work. However, apparently she did this as a ‘work for hire’, which means that they will be in the public domain in 2012, the 70th year after Waite’s death. Since Waite died in 1942, the Pictorial Key to the Tarot won’t be in the public domain in the EU and UK until 2012. Q. Many works are in the public domain in the United States but not in the EU or UK. That hardly seems fair. Aren’t there international laws that allow owners of copyrights to enforce their copyright worldwide? A. In a nutshell, yes, but (in my opinion) they don’t apply to the RWS or the PKT. For instance, in 1994 the US signed the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Among many other things, GATT normalized copyright terms for works that had entered the public domain in the US because the owners had failed to comply with US copyright laws.
