Question
I am working on a collection of older literary materials for an anthology of 20th century literature. For some of the used texts it is impossible to find the author. If I were to include an essay written approx. seventy years ago, would this be still forbidden under copyright? If the author published the work anonymously, do I still have to fear a lawsuit? And if an author would surface, could they stop the whole publication or would I only have to pay some fees?
Answers: 2 public & 0 private
The work is still be protected by copyright (95 years from the date of publication).
The practical thing to do (I’m not a lawyer so this is the non-legal advice…) would be to ask a qualified librarian to help you conduct a thorough search if you haven't done so already. A good institutional librarian should be accustomed to advising researchers about fair use of copyright. They can also put you in touch with a publishers' copyright licensing body who could advise you on what to do in this case. Otherwise, to play it safe – possibly a drawback for your anthology – you should omit the work, or at the very least, keep a record of all attempts to find the author (search results, screenshots etc.) so you that you can prove that you tried to find the author should they catch up with you.
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