An interesting point in English was raised the other day. We’ve moseyed our way on to Act III of Hamlet. We skipped a part of II.ii because apparently, it was Shakespeare talking about his views on theatre at the time. That led to something about his children, who were killed by the plague. So my English teacher says that there’s no one left who’s related to Shakespeare to collect all the royalties from every copy of his plays that were sold, although that could easily be rectified if they could get a DNA sample or something and match it with someone.

The fact is that it wouldn’t matter whether any of his relatives were alive or not anyway, since they wouldn’t be able to get any of that money we think they are entitled to. Why? Because of a nifty little thing called the Public Domain. Continue reading →