Chris Pearce's Blog, page 17

History of the Australian Aborigines

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Australian Aborigines first came to Australia from south-east Asia when the two continents were almost joined by a land bridge. Aborigines are thought to have started migrating to Australia about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. At that time, they already knew how to make stone tools and other implements, fire, and canoes, which would have got them across the narrow channels of water that separated the two continents. The earliest remains found so far are those of Mungo Man at Lake Mungo, 450 miles west of Sydney in 1974. Migration stopped when sea levels rose about 600 feet after the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Before the arrival of Europeans, there were at least 300,000 Aborigines living in Australia. Recent archeological evidence suggests a figure of 750,000 people would have been possible. They lived in about 600 tribes or groups averaging 500 to 1,000 or more members. Each tribe was divided into smaller bands of fifty or so people. Each band had its own territory and hunted within those boundaries. Sometimes nearby bands and tribes got together for special ceremonies. There were about 260 languages in Aboriginal Australia, many with two or three dialects.

Their society was organized and well structured. Marriage was subject to strict rules, with each tribe being divided into two halves. A man and a woman in the same half couldn’t marry. Marriages were usually arranged, although sometimes women were traded for boomerangs, ochre and other goods, while abduction was not unknown. Some men had several wives. Parenting was shared between mothers and fathers, and uncles and aunts. Everyone was involved in the search for food. The men would hunt the larger game with spears, clubs and boomerangs, while the women gathered plant food and hunted smaller animals. At night, they sat around their camp fire and exchanged stories, often those associated with the Dreaming. This was their religion, with stories going back to a creation time, as well as those on the Rainbow Serpent, yowie and bunyip.

Aborigines had minimal contact with the outside world before European settlement. Fisherman and traders from what is now Indonesia visited Australia since at least the seventeenth century. The Aborigines also had contact with the early explorers. It was sometimes violent, with spears thrown and shots fired, and could result in deaths on both sides. On other occasions, Aborigines would lead explorers to fresh water and offer them food.

When the First Fleet arrived at Sydney in January 1788, relations were cordial. The Aborigines either kept out of the way or ignored the newcomers. The first serious incident was in May of that year, when two convicts were killed at Rushcutters Bay. In the following year, an outbreak of smallpox resulted in the death of more than half of the Sydney Aborigines. Most of those that survived left the area. Scuffles continued in the outlying areas of the settlement. Strong resistance to white settlement in the Hawkesbury River and Parramatta areas to the west of Sydney resulted in “The Black War”, which lasted six years from 1799. The term was often used by settlers elsewhere in succeeding decades. Slaughter of Aborigines in Tasmania began in 1804 with about fifty killed by whites at Risdon Cove.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie was keen to make peace with the local population. In 1814, He put an Aborigine called Bungaree in charge of a farm for his people. It failed but he was given a brass breast plate that read, “Bungaree, King of the Blacks”. It marked the start of a tradition of giving inscribed breast plates to Aborigines if they had done something the whites felt was worthy of reward. Macquarie set up a school for Aborigines at Parramatta, but it too failed.

When seven whites were killed by Aborigines at Bathurst in 1824, Governor Brisbane imposed martial law. Soldiers and mounted police arrived and about 100 Aborigines were killed. The Myall Creek massacre in 1838 resulted in the deaths of 28 Aborigines by twelve stockmen. In Tasmania, Governor Arthur tried to round up all Aborigines and confine them to the Tasman Peninsula. But they knew the bush well and were too elusive for the 2,000 soldiers who formed a “Black Line” to try and catch them. One woman and one boy were caught at a cost of 35,000 pounds.

The massacres continued as Europeans spread across the country and took over traditional hunting grounds with cattle and sheep, chopping down forests, which meant less game. Aborigines had no concept of private ownership. If an animal of any description stood in a field, it belonged to whoever killed it. They would carry or drag it back to their camp, cook it, and eat it. They would later be killed themselves when settlers discovered they had lost stock. If Aborigines didn’t die in massacres, they often died of smallpox or various other diseases introduced by whites, or they starved to death.

By mid nineteenth century, Aboriginal Protectorates, bands of Native Police, and missions were set up around the country. But early protectorates were often regarded as a waste of time. The Native Police were little more than groups of Aborigines employed and rewarded by the whites for dispersing indigenous people seen as troublemakers. The Maloga Mission was set up in 1874 as a refuge for the remaining 9,000 Aborigines in New South Wales. In 1868, an Aboriginal cricket team toured England. In Tasmania, the last full-blood Aborigine, Truganini, died in 1876 aged 73.

In the last decades of the century, various missions, reserves, and protection boards were established for Aborigines, with limited success. Various tribes were shifted from their traditional homes to reserves, often hundreds or even a thousand miles away. This factor, together with language and cultural differences between the tribes, led to a great deal of friction and unhappiness. Traditional life was finished and Aborigines were expected to adopt white people’s lifestyle and become “civilized”.

The massacres didn’t stop. For example, 100 were killed at Richmond River in New South Wales in 1864, between twenty and 150 at Dampier in Western Australia in 1868, up to ninety at Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory in 1874, 200 at Mount Isa in Queensland in 1884, and an unknown number from various skirmishes and massacres in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory in the 1880s and 1890s.

The Commonwealth Constitution, drawn up when the colonies of Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901, stated that “in reckoning the numbers of the people … Aboriginal natives shall not be counted”. Aboriginal affairs weren’t explicitly specified as a Commonwealth power and were therefore left as an issue for each state. Reserves, missions, and protection boards were set up in each state and the Northern Territory. For example, the Queensland Government established a community at Cherbourg in 1904 and one on Palm Island in 1918. In Western Australia, reserves were set up, protectors were appointed, and rules for Aboriginal employment were put in place.

“Protection” effectively meant that children were taken away from their families and placed in foster care in a white family or sent to an orphanage. It was felt at the time that the Aboriginal race faced extinction and that the children should at least be given a chance in life. The ideology presumed that Europeans were superior to Aborigines. Those of mixed blood were often taken away too; for example, it was reported that many half-caste children born during the Ghan railway construction in South Australia and the Northern Territory had been abandoned. Some of the policy’s supporters were worried about a mixing of the races and that it threatened the stability of civilization. The children so taken would become known as the Stolen Generation.

Massacres continued until the late 1920s, especially in Western Australia. Many Aborigines were killed in the Kimberley region from the 1890s to the 1920s, including along the Canning Stock Route in 1906 and 1907, at Mistake Creek in 1915, at Bedford Downs in 1924, and at Forrest River in 1926. There was a massacre of 32 Aborigines at Coniston, Northern Territory, in 1928. The turning point came in the early 1930s. Two whites were killed by Aborigines for rape at Caledon Bay, Northern Territory. A party of whites was planning to head to the area with the intention of killing as many Aborigines as they could find, but the issue was resolved in the courts.

A policy of assimilation of Aboriginal people into the wider community was launched in 1937. Part Aborigines were assimilated whether they liked it or not. Detribalised Aborigines would receive an education, while the rest would stay on reserves. Aborigines were expected to attain the same level of living standards as other Australians, enjoy the same rights, have the same responsibilities, and observe the same customs and beliefs. Progress was slow, but by the 1960s, state expenditure on Aboriginal health, education, and housing has increased substantially. Legislation was altered to remove discriminatory provisions. Aborigines became eligible for social security payments in 1960. They could vote in federal elections from 1962. Legislation prohibiting the sale of alcohol was removed. Full award wages were to be paid to Aborigines. The assimilation policy was abandoned in the 1970s in favor of a more multicultural approach, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds, including Aborigines, to retain their identity.

In a referendum on 27 May 1967, 91 per cent of the Australian people voted to end constitutional discrimination against Aborigines. The Constitution was amended to include them in the five-yearly national census, and to allow the federal and state governments to share legislative responsibilities for Aborigines.

In the Gove Land Rights Case in 1971, the Northern Territory Supreme Court ruled that Aborigines did not own the Arnhem Land Reserve under Australian law, despite being the traditional owners. As a result, an Aboriginal “Tent Embassy” was set up on the lawns of old Parliament House in Canberra to pursue land rights issues. They wanted legal title and mining rights to large amounts of land across the country, preservation of sacred sites, and compensation payments for land that couldn’t be returned to them. The demands failed and the embassy came and went over the years.

The 1971 ruling stood until the Mabo case in 1992 where the High Court of Australia made void the concept of “terra nullius”, or “land belonging to no one”, which had been in place since the first white settlement in 1788, and to recognize native title. The decision allowed Aborigines to register claims of native title over certain land and give them particular rights as to the uses of the land.

The issue of apologizing to the Aboriginal people for taking their children away from them in earlier times had simmered for more than a decade. A report found that about 100,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their families by government agencies and church missions between 1869 and 1969. State and territory governments had apologized for their role in 1997-2001, but the previous Liberal-National Party federal government had refused to do so. New Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the Stolen Generation in February 2008.

Today, there are about 455,000 Aborigines in Australia, according to the latest (2006) figures, up from 410,000 in 2001. Numbers had fallen as low as 30,000 to 50,000 in the 1920s. While numbers have surged, Aborigines continue to struggle in a society dominated by a culture very different from their own. Their cause has not been helped by past atrocities. Compared to the rest of the population, Aborigines have poor health with average life expectancy of around 50-60 years, lower education levels, higher crime rates, high unemployment, and often substandard housing. Governments are concerned about the high consumption of alcohol, drug use, and child abuse in many Aboriginal communities. Various programs are in place to assist Aborigines, with mixed results.

Australia: let’s get rid of the states

Earlier today, I posted the following comment to an article on whether we need the existing system of three levels of government in Australia (see http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2016/1/7/politics/case-reinventing-states?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1773946&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=) …

The states of course came out of the colonies and worked well for quite a while. But these days, they aren’t necessary. Mark Drummond did a study for his PhD that was finalised in 2007 concluding that we’d save $50 billion a year getting rid of the states (I thought it was a 2007 figure rather than 2009; perhaps $70 billion in today’s dollars or 4-5% of GDP). It’s not hard to see why.

We have eight systems (six states and two territories) all basically doing the same thing. Very inefficient. And there’s the federal government too. There are endless overlaps, inefficiencies and fighting. If we got rid of the states, we’d be able to afford medical research, better roads and public transport, Gonski and NDIS, keep our tax concessions, not have to increase the GST, and not have to hit the sick, the poor, the old and the young as Joe Hockey tried to do in his first budget. Scott Morrison’s deficits and debt would be gone, and those of the states. Bob Hawke, John Howard, Tony Abbott and Peter Beattie have all got the right idea. Problem is there are too many vested interests for it to happen.

A free-for-all among the states (and people) where the rich get richer (i.e. those states that happen to have a larger population or more natural resources) and the poor get poorer wouldn’t work. The world used that approach throughout history until around early last century and it’s an important reason the world and individual countries struggled to go forward. Let’s use an example of suburbs. We’d end up with very rich suburbs and ghettoes, far more extreme than we have now. We’ve learnt that the much better way is to have more or less equal services across suburbs, towns and cities, such that people have similar health facilities, education opportunities, roads, etc (or at least aim for this), regardless of whether their suburb is rich, poor or in the middle. Decent wages come into it too. (And let the private sector compete within such an environment, which is what we now do.) In the end, it works out better for everyone from billionaires down. If nearly everyone was poor as per Industrial Revolution times, there isn’t much chance of a good number of people becoming wealthy, let alone billionaires, as there just aren’t enough people with money to buy the goods and services produced by the well-off.

Essential facts about Australia

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Here are some essential facts about Australia for those who live in the country, intend to move there or are thinking of moving there, or want to visit the country. The facts presented here are divided into several broad categories: geography, climate, history, government, the people, and the economy.

Geography

Australia is located to the south of eastern Asia, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world’s sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, the United States, China, and Brazil, with a land area of nearly three million square miles. The country is entirely surrounded by sea, has over 21,000 miles of coastline, and is usually regarded as a continent. It is the oldest, flattest, and driest country. Most of Australia is desert or semi-desert, although forests cover eighteen per cent of the country. Due to Australia’s age, climatic extremes, and isolation, much of the country’s fauna and flora is unique. More than four-fifths of its mammals and plants and nearly half of its birds are not found elsewhere.

The largest geographical feature is the Western Shield, basically the desert area covering much of Western Australia, Northern Territory, and South Australia. To its east is the Great Artesian Basin, extending through much of Queensland and New South Wales. The Great Dividing Range runs along the eastern side of the country from northern Queensland to Tasmania. Australia’s highest point, Mount Kosciusko, at 7,310 feet, is part of the range. The 1,200 mile long Great Barrier Reef lies off the Queensland coast.

The name “Australia” comes from the Latin “australis”, which means “southern”. Stories of a great southern land go back to Roman days, where people thought that something had to exist down there in order to balance the world. “Australia” was first used in the English language in 1625. The name wasn’t commonly used until the 1810s. In 1824, the British government declared that the continent should be called Australia.

Climate

Australia’s large size and latitudinal span means it has a wide variety of climatic conditions, including tropical, temperate, alpine and arid. Most of Western Australia, South Australia, and Northern Territory, and a large part of New South Wales and Queensland, is desert or semi-arid. The desert areas receive less than ten inches of rain a year, while the semi-arid areas receive 10-20 inches. Temperatures can reach 110-120 degrees by day in summer, but can fall below 30 degrees on winter nights in some places.

A tropical climate can be found along the northern and north-eastern coastal areas. Rainforests dominate these regions, where average rainfall is as high as 160 inches a year. Most of the rain falls in the summer months. These areas can be quite hot, with summer average maximums of up to 95 degrees. The tropical belt is often subject to cyclones, flooding, and drought.

The temperate zone extends in a band from inland of Brisbane, south through New South Wales, most of Victoria, all of Tasmania, and part of South Australia. Most of Australia’s major cities are located in this area. Summers are warm and winters mild. Moderate levels of rainfall are spread throughout the year. Weather extremes can be experienced in this region, including temperatures over 100 degrees, drought and flooding. Bush fires are a hazard in this region.

A small area of south-east New South Wales is regarded as having an alpine climate. Temperatures in this mountainous area frequently fall to 10-20 degrees overnight in winter. Good snowfalls suitable for skiing are usually received in the colder months.

History

The Australian Aborigines migrated to the continent from India and south-east Asia up to 50,000 years ago, when Australia and Asia were more or less linked by land bridges. In pre-European times, they were hunter-gatherers living in small groups of 25-50 people. At the time of European settlement, an estimated 300,000 Aborigines lived in all parts of Australia.

The first European sighting of Australia was by Dutchman Willem Janszoon, who saw Cape York Peninsula in the country’s north-east in 1606. Other early explorers included Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, who chartered the Tasmanian coastline in 1642, and William Dampier from England, who mapped the western and north-western coasts. The best known explorer was Englishman Captain James Cook, who tracked the east coast of Australia in 1770 and claimed it for England.

European settlement of Australia started in 1788 when a convict colony was set up at Port Jackson, where Sydney now stands. Another convict colony was established along Tasmania’s Derwent River in 1803, which became Hobart. The first free settlers came to Australia in the 1790s. Over the coming decades, they spread to most parts of the continent. Other colonies were set up at Brisbane in 1824, Perth in 1829, Melbourne in 1835, and Adelaide in 1836. The last two didn’t use convict labour. Convicts continued to be brought to Australia until 1840 in New South Wales, 1853 in Tasmania, and 1868 in Western Australia.

Gold was discovered in Victoria and New South Wales in the 1850s, Queensland from the 1860s and Western Australia in the 1890s. People came in their hundreds of thousands to seek their fortune. Victoria’s population exploded from 77,000 to 540,000 in two years from 1851 to 1853. The population of Australia grew from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871.

The six states of the continent became a country, the Commonwealth of Australia, on 1 January 1901, after a majority of voters in a majority of states voted that the previously separate colonies unite as one. New social legislation before World War I included women getting the vote in 1902, a basic wage in 1906, age and invalid pensions in 1909 and 1910 respectively, free and compulsory education around 1910, and a maternity allowance in 1912.

Australia sent 330,000 troops to Europe during World War I (1914-1918) to fight with the British. However, conscription was defeated in two referendums. In World War II (1939-1945), Australian troops fought in the Middle East from 1940 to 1942, and in the Pacific region from 1942 after Japan entered the war. Australia ended most of its constitutional links with the United Kingdom in 1942.

Aboriginal people were given the vote in 1967 after a referendum in which over ninety per cent of Australia’s population supported the move. The nation’s White Australia Policy, which was one of the Commonwealth’s first pieces of legislation in 1901, was finally wound back and abolished in 1973.

Remaining constitutional ties with the United Kingdom were cut with the introduction of the Australia Act in 1986. A referendum in 1999 rejected a move for Australia to become a republic by less than five per cent of the vote.

Government

Initially, the Australian colonies were under British rule. Self-government was achieved in 1850 with Britain passing the Australian Colonies Government Act. This gave the colonies considerable independence, including the right to amend their constitutions and impose tariffs.

Since 1901, Australia has been a constitutional democracy. The federal government is divided into three branches: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislator is the Commonwealth Parliament, which comprises the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Queen. The executive consists of the prime minister and the other federal ministers. The judiciary is the federal courts, including the High Court of Australia.

The House of Representatives or lower house has 150 seats spread evenly around Australia on a population basis, within tolerances. The Senate or upper house has 76 senators, with each state having twelve and each territory having two. An election on 24 November 2007 saw the Labor Party swept to victory over the Liberal-National Coalition, with Kevin Rudd becoming prime minister. Unlike in some countries, voting is compulsory in Australia.

Section 51 of the Australian Constitution sets out the powers of the federal government. These include trade and commerce with other countries, external affairs, income tax, defence, currency, immigration, marriage and divorce, bankruptcy, and pensions, among others. Any area not in the Constitution rests with the states and territories, which includes hospitals, education, public transport, roads, police, state courts, and local government.

Australia has six states, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, and two main territories, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. The national capital is Canberra, within the ACT. There are also a number of minor internal and external territories. Australia has 673 local councils in charge of planning, local roads and traffic, rubbish collection, water, local laws and regulations, and so on.

People

The population of Australia in early 2008 was about 21 million. This includes around ninety per cent who originated from Europe, six per cent from Asia, and over two per cent who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. About 14 million Australians were born in the country. Other main countries of birth are England, New Zealand, China, Italy, and Vietnam.

Australia has always operated a large migration program. Since the end of Word War II, around seven million migrants have arrived in Australia. Most immigration in the post-war years was from the United Kingdom and Europe. In more recent decades, the emphasis has shifted to Asian countries. Migrants come to Australia as skilled workers, business people, family members of previous migrants, and refugees.

More than 85 per cent of Australians live in urban areas. The major cities and their populations are Sydney (4.3 million), Melbourne (3.7 million), Brisbane (1.8 million), Perth (1.5 million), Adelaide (1.1 million), Gold Coast (520,000), Newcastle (500,000), Canberra (330,000), Geelong (210,000), Hobart (205,000), Wollongong (190,000), and Townsville (165,000). Most of Australia’s population lives in an arc from Brisbane to Adelaide.

The official language of Australian is English. About eighty per cent of people speak only English. The next major languages are Chinese (spoken by 2.3 per cent of the population), Italian (1.6 per cent), Greek (1.3 per cent), and Arabic (1.2 per cent). Australian Aboriginal languages are the main language for around 50,000 people or 0.25 per cent of the population. About 260 Aboriginal languages were spoken throughout Australia before white settlement. Only about seventy survive, with about fifty of these in danger of disappearing.

Australians are free to choose their religion, and also whether to have one at all. About 26 per cent are Catholic and nineteen per cent are Anglican. There are many smaller Christian religions. The main non-Christian religion is Islam, with about 340,000 Muslims living in Australia, or nearly two per cent of the population. There are smaller numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews. At the 2006 census, nineteen per cent of people didn’t have a religion, while twelve per cent chose not to state their religion.

Attendance at school is compulsory from age six to fifteen. Among adults, 99 per cent are literate. More than half of the population has a vocational or tertiary qualification. Australia has 38 universities, and a technical and further education system. The country has the highest ratio of international to local tertiary students in the world.

Three-quarters of the population live in a separate house, with a further nine per cent living in a semi-detached or terrace house or townhouse, and fourteen per cent live in a flat, unit or apartment.

Economy

Australia has a market economy with a large private sector and relatively small government sector. Traditionally, the major industries were agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. However, over eighty per cent of the labour force now work in services, such as retail trade, banking, education, tourism, and government services. Agriculture and mining are still important as they account for 65 per cent of exports.

Gross domestic product was $645 billion in 2006, ranking Australia seventeenth in terms of economic output. Growth is quite strong at about four per cent per annum. Inflation is relatively low at around three per cent and unemployment is about four per cent, down from double digits only a decade ago.

Australia has a goods and services tax of ten per cent. Residents pay no income tax on the first $6,000 of annual personal income, and then fifteen cents in the dollar up to $30,000, then thirty cents up to $75,000, then forty cents up to $150,000, and then 45 cents for amounts above $150,000. A Medicare levy of 1.5 per cent is added to these rates. State taxes include stamp duty, land tax, and payroll tax. Local governments charge a rate on property owners.

Australia’s currency was converted from pounds to a decimal system using dollars on 14 February 1966. Coins range in value from five cents to two dollars, and notes from five dollars to 100 dollars. The exchange rate with the US dollar has hovered around 90 to 95 cents in the early months of 2008.

All in all, Australia is a great place to live, with a good climate, prosperous economy, and few of the tensions that exist in many parts of the world. Australia came sixth in the Economist’s quality of life index in 2005 and third in the United Nations’ Human Development Index in 2007.

Daylight saving time’s potential to save energy

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

One of the major reasons countries have daylight saving time is its potential to save energy. The main savings come from household lighting, which only uses 3-4 per cent of electricity consumed in the United States and Canada. From this low base, the amount of fuel saved by having domestic lights on for an hour less each day in the evening for half the year is small. A proportion of this savings is rubbed out as people use more artificial light in the morning.

The first study of how the better utilization of daylight would save energy was by Benjamin Franklin in 1784. His letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris was published under the title “An economical project for diminishing the cost of light”. He estimated that Parisians used 128 million candle hours a year unnecessarily. This used about 29,000 tons of wax and tallow, which cost 96 million livres tournois (or more than $200 million in today’s money), “an immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles”, Franklin exclaimed. But the savings were exaggerated as he assumed people used candles seven hours a night in summer months and got up at noon.

Over a century later, Englishman William Willett, who fought long and hard for the introduction of daylight saving, came up with a more rigorous analysis of the savings. In his booklet, “The Waste of Daylight”, which he published in 1907, he estimated the total energy savings his idea could be expected to generate for Great Britain and Ireland. He assumed the cost of artificial light was a tenth of a penny per head per hour. Under the scheme, the total amount of extra daylight in the evening was 210 hours a year. Using a population estimate of 43.66 million, gross savings equated to 3,820,250 pounds in a year. He then deducted a third of this “to meet all possible objections, including loss of profit to producers of artificial light”, arriving at net savings of 2,546,834 pounds.

Indeed the main reason daylight saving time was finally introduced, in 1916, was to save fuel for the war effort. Germany was the first country to start daylight saving time, with many other countries soon following, including the United Kingdom. When World War I finished in 1918, most countries stopped using it. They resumed it during World War II, again to save energy, some countries turning their clocks forward two hours in summer and leaving them one hour ahead in winter. Another rush to adopt daylight saving time took place during the energy crises of the mid 1970s to early 1980s. A number of countries have adopted daylight saving time when fuel costs have soared and stop using it when prices ease.

Studies over the years have indicated that daylight saving time doesn’t save a great amount of fuel. Like many countries, the United States had daylight saving time during World War II. However, in 1941, President Roosevelt could only claim that it saved about 700 million kilowatt hours of fuel for defense purposes. This equated to 0.5 per cent of power production or enough to run the 2.5 million refrigerators Americans bought in the first half of 1941.

A study by the US Department of Transport in 1975 estimated that daylight saving time lowers electricity use by 1 per cent in March and April. But the National Bureau of Standards reviewed the study and found negligible savings. More recent studies in the United States have shown similar findings. In 2007, an early start to daylight saving had little effect on California’s power usage. A three year study of electricity consumption in Indiana showed that usage was 1 per cent higher with daylight saving time, resulting in an extra $9 million added to household power costs. A US Department of Energy study found that the daylight saving time extension in 2007 only saved 0.5 per cent of fuel consumption.

Studies in other countries have given disappointing results too. In Australia in 2000, when daylight saving time started in late winter for the Sydney Olympic Games, electricity use increased in the mornings while overall consumption was unchanged. Western Australia is trialing daylight saving time for three years from 2006-07 to 2008-09, but found that electricity consumption rose 0.6 per cent in the first summer. In Japan, a study of residential energy use in Osaka estimated there would be virtually no difference in electricity consumption if daylight saving time was introduced. The slight saving in lighting was offset by a small increase in electricity for cooling as people got home earlier in the afternoon. Ironically, a study in the United Kingdom in 2007 found a 2 per cent saving in electricity usage if daylight saving time was used in winter!

Thus the ability of daylight saving time to save energy appears to be limited. Yet over the decades, apparent fuel savings have been the main reason most countries have adopted it. Most studies have found that a reduction in lighting in the evening is offset by greater usage in the morning and an increase in cooling.

Daylight saving time practices around the world

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone; written in 2008, updated in 2013)

About 70 countries around the world use daylight saving time (DST), advancing their clocks one hour in the spring and turning them back in autumn. Changeover time in most countries is the wee small hours of Sunday morning, which causes the least disruption to businesses and households alike.

Virtually all European countries have daylight saving time. The European Community countries now have coordinated DST, starting on the last Sunday in March since 1981 and ending on the last Sunday in October since 1998. The only country not to use it is Iceland where it gets dark so late and light so early in summer that DST would be of limited use. Iceland last had DST in 1967.

Most of Europe had DST during World War I, especially Western Europe. DST finished in many European countries after 1919 or 1920, although some kept it through the entire interwar period, such as the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, as did parts of Canada and the United States. Nearly all of Europe adopted DST during World War II, some not turning back their clocks at all for several years. Two hours of daylight saving in summer, called double daylight saving time, and one hour in winter was common practice. Daylight saving time was often called War Time during this period. Various countries in other parts of the world had DST during World War II.

After the war, some countries stopped DST, although a number continued with it for a few years before abandoning it.  The only places to have had DST in the entire postwar period are parts of the United States and Canada. No European country has had it throughout this period. The closest is the United Kingdom, which has had it in all years except 1968-1971 when it switched to Central European Time (GMT+1) and consequently didn’t have separate DST. A large number of countries resumed daylight saving time in the 1970s and early 1980s, especially at the time of the energy crises.

In the United States, DST was a state and local issue, with the result that some areas had it and other didn’t. During a train or road trip of a few hours, a person could pass through a number of different time zones. There were even instances of people living on opposite sides of a river being on different times. This caused various problems when family members went to work or school or the shops on the other side of the river. On one occasion, different workers in a single building were on two separate times, as some businesses recognised DST and others didn’t. A similar problem still happens at the southern end of Australia’s Gold Coast area where the state of New South Wales has DST but the state of Queensland doesn’t have it.

Daylight saving time became a federal issue in the United States in 1966 with the Uniform Time Act. Since then, nearly all states have had DST. Exceptions are Arizona except the Navajo Nation, and Hawaii. The only occasion Hawaii had DST was in 1933, for three weeks from 30 April to 21 May, although some sources say it lasted just one day and was abandoned on 1 May. DST is less useful in tropical areas as day and night are of similar length. Indiana has observed DST since 2006. In Alaska and Florida, there are moves to try and end DST. The period of DST each year in the United States was extended by a month under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It now lasts almost two-thirds of the year, from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

All of Canada except Saskatchewan province observes DST, including those areas within the Arctic Circle where daylight lasts 24 hours for at least part of the summer. The whole of Saskatchewan moved to the Central time zone in 1966, which effectively means it has year round DST. Similarly, time zone boundaries for many countries have changed considerably over the years and are still occurring. Most changes tend to be in a easterly direction and are often for the purpose of saving daylight. This results in a skewing of zones and is evident in places like the United States, Canada, southern South America, Western Europe, parts of Africa, as well as Russia, China and Mongolia. On top of this, most of these places also have DST, although China stopped in 1991 and Mongolia in 2006.

While the use or non-use of DST is quite settled in Europe and North America, this isn’t the case in Asia. About seven Asian countries currently observe DST. Iran had it from 1978 to 1980 and from 1991 to 2005, and again from 2008. Iraq used it from 1982 to 2007. Israel had DST for most of the period 1940 to 1957, 1974, 1975, and all years since 1985. At the end of DST, until 2012 clocks were moved back on the Sunday between the two holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, whose dates differ each year. From 2013, clocks go back on the last Sunday in October. Georgia had DST in World War II and for most years since 1981, until 2004. Japan only used it from 1948 to 1951 but moves to resurrect it have gained momentum since the late 1990s. South Korea has hardly used DST either. Taiwan hasn’t used it since 1980. Many of the previous USSR countries have abandoned it. Pakistan had it in 2002, 2008 and 2009 due to high fuel costs.

Mexico observed DST during World War II. The whole country, including its tropical areas, has had DST since 1996, except Sonara from 1999 due to its trade with Arizona. Baja California has had it for several decades. In Central America, most countries have used it at some stage, although none use it at the moment. Guatemala and Nicaragua have had it sporadically since 1973, when energy conservation demands it. In the West Indies, the Bahamas and Cuba have used DST since the mid 1960s.

In South America, Argentina and Brazil have opted in and then out of DST six and five times respectively. Some states in Brazil have used it each year since 1985, while certain Argentinian provinces resumed it in 2007 to 2009. Uruguay has the world record for the most episodes of DST with eleven: 1923-24 to 1925-26, 1933-34 to 1938-39, 1939-40 to 1942-43, 1959-1960, 1965-1970, 1972, 1974-1976, 1977-78, 1979-80, 1987-88 to 1992-93, and 2004-05 to present. This country narrowly shades Portugal who has had ten episodes of DST. Energy saving considerations play a major role in most of these countries. Other South American countries currently using DST include Chile and Paraguay.

Most of Africa doesn’t observe DST and it is the only continent where most countries have never adopted it. Egypt had it during World War II and again from 1957 until 2010. Algeria used it in both world wars and for a few odd years in the 1970s. Libya has had it on and off, including from 2012. Namibia has had it since 1994 and Morocco since 2008. A handful of other African countries have had DST for a period before abandoning it. South Africa used it for two years in the 1940s but not since.

In Australia, Tasmania started DST in 1916. The rest had it in 1917, for a few years in World War II and, in most states, since 1971. Western Australia underwent a trial period of DST from 2006-07 to 2008-09, but hasn’t continued with it. Queensland hasn’t observed DST since 1992, although it comes up as a political issue every spring. Most residents in the state’s populated south-east want it while the rest don’t. New Zealand has had it every year since 1974-75. Fiji used it in 1998-2000 and since 2009, and Samoa since 2011. DST is used in Antarctica by certain stations if their home country has it.

In summary, nearly all of Europe observes daylight saving time whereas usage varies elsewhere. It is less common in tropical areas where day and night don’t vary much in length or in high latitude regions where summer nights are very short. A large number of countries have started and then finished DST a number of times, or tend to experiment with it, often when energy costs rise. It remains a contentious issue in many parts of the world.

History of time zones

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Time zones can be traced back to the early days of rail. Before then, cities and towns set their clocks by the sun, with 12 o’clock noon corresponding to the sun’s highest point. People set their own timepieces by the town clock. Anyone traveling east or west by coach, horse or foot simply adjusted their timepiece, if they had one at all, at the next town.

The railways brought pressure to standardize time. England’s first intercity railroad linked boom cotton town Manchester with thriving port Liverpool in 1830. Within a decade, railways were springing up everywhere. Inconsistencies in local time became a nightmare for railway companies trying to devise timetables. For example the difference between London and Plymouth times was 16 minutes, with a number of other local times along the way. People needed to know what time a train arrived or departed. Using local clock time made it hard to do so, especially for trains traveling east or west. Even more important were safety issues. Two trains could be on different times heading towards each other on the same track.

The Great Western Railway adopted London time in November 1840. This was the world’s first system of standard time and first time zone. Other railways quickly followed and by 1847 the timetables of most English railways used London or Greenwich time. After initial resistance, most communities aligned their clocks to agree with railway time. By 1855, an estimated 98 per cent of public clocks in Britain were set to Greenwich time, although some had two minute hands, one showing London time and the other retaining the old local time.

In America, the eastern third of the country was a spaghetti network of over 30,000 miles of track by 1860. A line to the west coast was laid in the 1860s, and the network continued to expand until it crisscrossed the whole country by the 1880s. Distances were immense compared with those in Britain, and in 1870 the United States had 200 local times and 80 railroad times. Train travel chaos was inevitable with such a system. Anyone planning a trip of any distance and who had to make connections to different lines needed a wad of timetables and the ability to perform complicated calculations to get to their ultimate destination. Stations had clocks lined up along their walls showing the time of each rail company or line and perhaps local time. St Louis for example had six different railroad times.

Before the railways, around 1809, amateur astronomer William Lambert approached Congress to set up time zones based on meridians. In about 1863, educator Charles Dowd proposed dividing the country into four time zones, with an hour’s difference between each one. From 1869, he consulted with the railroads, wrote newspaper and journal articles, lectured, and prepared detailed rail timetables. He produced a booklet, “A System of National Time for Railroads”, using Washington DC time as the base. He took it to Congress in 1870, before completing a revised version in 1872 based on Greenwich time.

Dowd got support from other quarters, including railway companies, the Canadian Institute, the American Meteorological Society, and the Society of Civil Engineers. People started suggesting railroad time be made the only time. William Allen, secretary of the American Railroad Association, lobbied long and hard for a system of time zones. He and Dowd finally got their way in 1883 when a meeting in Chicago of US and Canadian railroad company bosses decided to introduce a system of time zones. It was very close to what Dowd had proposed 11 years earlier and was introduced on 18 November of that year. The new time zones were soon adopted by most communities.

Britain and America weren’t the only two countries to use standard time or time zones. Railways spread rapidly in all continents in the mid to late nineteenth century, and railway time or some sort of unified time system or a time zone usually replaced or ran alongside local time. Many countries used the local time of their capital city as the basis, such as Rome from 1866. The Swedes picked the meridian halfway between Stockholm and Göteborg in 1879. North German railways introduced standard time in 1874. New Zealand was the first country to use standard time for the whole nation, in 1868, setting it 11.5 hours ahead of Greenwich time.

By the 1870s, the idea of a world system of standard time and time zones was brewing. In 1871, the first International Geographical Congress at Antwerp in Belgium decided that the Greenwich meridian should be the zero meridian or starting point for longitude within 15 years. The IGC met again in Rome in 1875 and confirmed that Greenwich should be the prime meridian.

In Toronto in November 1876, Canadian engineer and inventor Sir Sandford Fleming delivered a paper, “Uniform non-local time (terrestrial time)”, to the Canadian Institute. He was a keen supporter of railway time zones across North America, but at this session he proposed a system of standard time zones right around the world instead of each country going its own way. He advocated 24 time zones, each equal to 15 degrees of longitude or one hour, and promoted his views at subsequent conferences, including the Geographical Congress at Venice in 1881 and the Geodetic Conference at Rome in 1883.

After being a key player in the implementation of American railway time on 18 November 1883, Fleming was instrumental in convening the Prime Meridian Conference at Washington in October 1884, a meeting called by US president Chester Alan Arthur. At the time, ships trying to get their bearings were confronted with 11 reference meridians: Berlin, Cadiz, Copenhagen, Greenwich, Lisbon, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, St Petersburg, Stockholm and Tokyo. Also, Jerusalem had been favoured as the prime meridian by some religious groups. Various other cities and places had been used as the reference meridian from time to time. Fleming wanted the prime meridian to run through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, exactly 180 degrees from Greenwich. The conference voted Greenwich as the prime meridian and passed a number of other related resolutions such as a universal day.

Standard time and 24 times zones were proposed by Fleming and one other delegate but were rejected as a local issue and outside the scope of the conference, which was to choose a prime meridian. Contrary to popular belief, the meeting did not adopt standard time or time zones. Ultimately, this would be up to individual countries and their governments, although the groundwork had been laid by the Prime Meridian Conference and the likes of Fleming. New Zealand (1868), Britain (1880) and unofficially the United States and Canada (1883) were already on standard time and had worked out their time zones. Interestingly, US legislation to recognize time zones didn’t occur until the Standard Time Act in 1918. The legislation only came about due to the push the adopt daylight saving time, which couldn’t start until an official system of time zones and standard time was in place.

A few countries implemented standard time based on Greenwich mean time and chose their time zone straight after the 1884 conference. Most took much longer. Governments were lobbied by the railways, business interests and city dwellers who wanted standard time, as well as by various civic and religious leaders and farmers who often didn’t want it, before finally passing legislation. In many countries, the changeover in practical terms was even slower, especially in rural areas. There seemed to be little or no relation between the time it took a country to adopt standard time and its size, wealth or technological advancement. Afghanistan adopted it in 1890 but Netherlands didn’t use it until 1940. France was relatively slow (1911) as it was reluctant to recognize Greenwich as the prime meridian.

By the 1920s, all major countries were on standard time and using time zones based on the Greenwich meridian, although allowing for country and regional boundaries in many cases. Countries and regions gave their own names to their particular time zones, for example Eastern Standard Time (eastern part of Australia), Central European Time, Alaska Standard Time, Beijing Time (or Chinese Standard Time) and numerous others. Some countries were still making the change in the 1940s and 1950s. The last country to adopt standard time and a time zone was Liberia, in 1972, nearly ninety years after the Prime Meridian Conference.

Time zones generally follow national or state boundaries, but also natural features such as rivers or mountains. Sometimes the choice of zones is skewed by countries opting to go with times used in neighboring countries. In the United States, time zone boundaries go through the middle of eleven states. Time zone boundaries for many countries have changed considerably over the years and are still occurring. Most changes tend to be in a westerly direction and are often for the purpose of saving daylight. This results in a skewing of zones and is evident in places like the United States, Canada, southern South America, Western Europe, parts of Africa, as well as Russia, China and Mongolia.

Shifting zones hasn’t proved beneficial to all countries. The United Kingdom and Ireland trialed Central European Time in 1968, aligning with most of Europe in the GMT+1 zone. The experiment was unpopular and ended in 1971 due to an increase in road accidents on dark winter mornings, many involving children walking to school. Portugal too tried Central time in the periods 1966-1976 and 1992-1996. All eleven Russian time zones were moved an hour ahead of the old standard time in 1930 for economic reasons. Russia has never quite made the full transition to time zones. Moscow mean time, used throughout the whole of Russia from 1880 to 1917, still operates alongside standard time. Clocks at rail stations and airports are set to Moscow time, which can differ from local time by up to nine hours. Radio stations across the country refer to Moscow time. China, despite its size, changed from a five time zone system to a single time zone in 1949.

Several countries don’t quite use standard time or time zones in the way they were originally intended. Israel, for example, starts its day at 6 pm. In essence, this puts it eight hours ahead of Greenwich instead of two. Half hour deviations from standard time are used by Newfoundland, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Australia’s Northern Territory and South Australia, and a number of islands. Nepal and Chatham Islands east of New Zealand use quarter hour deviations. Certain islands in the Pacific use GMT+13 and +14 rather than GMT-11 and -10. Thus there are now about 39 time zones, the earliest and latest being 26 hours apart. On a global scale, three different days exist at any one time and any calendar date extends for 50 hours around the world.

Overall, standard time and time zones work very well, considering that decisions have been up to each individual national and sometimes state government around the world. The system isn’t perfect but there is broad coordination in time among all countries. It is perhaps one of the few things virtually the whole world agrees on.

The influence of railroads on American time zones

The development and expansion of railroads in the 19th century is largely responsible for our time zones today. Setting up time zones enabled us to establish a system of daylight saving time. Here’s an article I wrote and published to Helium writing site, now gone …

For centuries, cities and towns had set their clocks by the sun, with 12 noon corresponding to the sun’s highest point. Clocks to the east or west would show slightly different times. Solar noon varies by up to about half an hour over the course of a year. Some towns would change their clocks and others didn’t bother. Local mean time addressed some of these issues and was used in many places by the early nineteenth century. All this was fine in an era when people didn’t worry about exact time and where travel was by horse, carriage, or foot. The railroads brought pressure to standardize time across vast areas.

The world’s first system of standard time was in England when the Great Western Railway adopted London or Greenwich time in November 1840. Other railways soon followed and by 1847 most English rail timetables used Greenwich time. Initially, most communities didn’t change their clocks, keeping them on local time. After a period of confusion, with people missing their train or arriving too early, town clocks were altered to railway or Greenwich time. By 1855, an estimated 98 per cent of public clocks in Britain were set to this time, thus creating a single time zone for the entire country. The railways had forced the change.

America started building railroads at the same time as the English, around 1830. By 1860, the eastern third of the country was a spaghetti network of over 30,000 miles of track. A line to the west coast was laid in the 1860s, and the network continued to expand until it crisscrossed the whole country by the 1880s. Distances were immense compared with those in Britain and in 1870 the United States had 200 local times and 80 railroad times. This was despite certain railroads setting up regional time zones from the early 1850s, for example, New England, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Travelers from Maine in the east to California in the west still had to change their timepieces 20 times.

Train travel chaos was inevitable with such a system. Anyone planning a trip of any distance and who had to make connections to different lines needed a wad of timetables and the ability to perform complicated calculations to get to their ultimate destination at the desired time. Stations had clocks lined up along their walls showing the time of each rail company or line and perhaps local time. St Louis, for example, had six different railroad times. The time used by a train might be based on the local time where it originated, or where it terminated. And some cities and towns used local time while others used railway time or the time in a nearby larger centre. In the end, no one knew what the time was with any certainty.

Despite this, it was the responsibility of passengers to work out their trips. Train was the only viable method of long distance travel, there being no motor cars or airplanes. Business folk and other travelers had no choice. Getting to meetings or appointments on time was hit or miss. In addition, there were seven different track gauges in America in 1860. To try and resolve the time issue, people suggested a system similar to the one in Britain, where the local time for one place became the standard. But the local time difference between the eastern and western extremities of America exceeded three hours, too large an area to be lumped into one time zone.

Way before the railways, around 1809, amateur astronomer William Lambert had approached Congress to establish time zones based on meridians. Doubtless, many others had similar thoughts before the idea was taken up again around 1863 by educator Charles Dowd who proposed dividing the country into four time zones, each area differing by an hour from the next one. From 1869, he consulted with railroad companies, lectured, wrote newspaper and journal articles, and prepared detailed rail timetables. He produced a pamphlet, “A System of National Time for Railroads”, using Washington DC time as the base and took it to Congress in 1870, before completing a revised system in 1872 based on Greenwich time.

Dowd got support from other quarters. Railway companies and some public societies such as the Canadian Institute, the American Meteorological Society, and the Society of Civil Engineers took up the cause. People started suggesting railroad time be made the only time. This led to great controversy, with many stalwart civic leaders wanting to keep their own time as a matter of local pride. William Allen, secretary of the American Railroad Association, also lobbied long and hard for a system of time zones. He and Dowd finally got their way when a meeting of US and Canadian railroad company bosses in Chicago in 1883 decided to introduce a system of time zones. These were very close to what Dowd had proposed 11 years earlier. Another to play a key role was Sandford Fleming, who also led the move towards worldwide standard time zones in 1883.

The changeover to railway time zones was on Sunday 18 November 1883. It went remarkably smoothly and was called “The Day of Two Noons” by the press as people adjusted their timepieces at local noon to the new noon time within their new standard time zone. The four new zones were Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, and Mountain or Pacific. Many public institutions and jewelers also made the change.

Crowds gathered outside shop windows, or wherever they could find a clock, to witness the spectacle. Some were in awe and couldn’t quite understand how time could be stopped for up to half an hour or more, or how it could skip this interval, depending on the location. Others protested that man cannot change God’s time and were going to complain to their church and government. But there was no legislation or other government action to change the time. It was purely a collective decision by the railroad companies of the United States and Canada, and communities could follow it or stay on local time.

Initially, many towns and institutions retained local time alongside railroad standard time. But this didn’t last long. Within days, around 70 per cent of American schools, courts, and local governments adopted the new time system. After a year, about 85 per cent of cities with a population over 10,000 were using it. Most pockets of resistance steadily converted to standard time and the relevant time zone.

An exception was Detroit, which kept local time. The view among much of the city’s population was that the sun, and hence God, not man, should decide the time. Engineer and future car manufacturer Henry Ford favored standard time and designed a watch with two dials, to show both standard time and Detroit time. Finally, in 1900, city councilors decided to put clocks back 28 minutes to US Central Standard Time, but many people refused to change and after much quarrelling the city went back to local time. Someone sent a facetious offer to put a sundial at the front of City Hall and council scornfully forwarded it to the Committee on Sewers. Lively debate continued and in 1905 the city voted to adopt Central Standard Time again. But lobbying kept going for years by the More Daylight Club, motor car enthusiasts, and baseball fans. The city moved to Eastern time in 1915.

Although nearly all the United States, including government, adopted the standard time and time zones introduced by the railways in 1883, it was many years before federal legislation was put in place. This finally came in the form of the Standard Time Act in 1918. The legislation only came about due to the push the adopt daylight saving time, which couldn’t start until an official system of time zones and standard time was in place.

How to register a copyright

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Original work is protected under the Berne Convention, Article 2 (2), in any country that is a signatory to the convention, which includes about 165 countries. However, only a few countries have a system of registering copyright. Although registering a copyright in these countries is not compulsory, there are some advantages. Copyright details are on public record and the author or creator has a certificate. In the US, if an author registers their work no more than five years after publication, it automatically qualifies as evidence in court. In the event of a successful court case, the author can get legal fees and statutory damages paid.

In the US, copyright registration services are provided by the United States Copyright Office. These days, the main method of registering a copyright is by electronic form via their online system. By clicking on the Registration tab at top of the home page, or on Forms (under Publications), the author or creator is taken to a page with all the registration details. From there, the person can click on the Electronic Copyright Office button and register before filling the forms out online. This service offers the quickest processing time, currently nine months or less, to obtain a certificate of registration. Progress of applications can be tracked online. The filing fee for online registration is $35, via secure payment.

Two other copyright registration methods are possible. A CO form can be downloaded from the Copyright Office site, filled in, and printed out. It can be mailed to the office. The fee for this option is $50. Instructions to fill in the form and a page of FAQs are provided online. For authors and creators without computer access, relevant forms, such as a Form TX for literary works, a Form VA for visual arts works, and so on, can be mailed out by contacting the office. Cost to register copyright this way is $65. For both methods, waiting time for a certificate is up to 22 months. The process can take this long depending on how busy the office is, as well as the number of questions about the application and perhaps establishing that the person is indeed the copyright holder.

In Canada, from the home page of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, authors and creators can click on “register your copyright” in the centre of the page. This goes to a page explaining the applications process. Clear and detailed instructions show applicants how to fill in An Application for Registration of Copyright form. At bottom, there is a link to the actual form. A fee of $50 is payable if submitting online; otherwise it’s $65. The office advises applicants of the progress of their application at several stages of the process. Canadians can expect a registration certificate in three working days for online applications and for special requests by fax or mail, and 10 working days for ordinary applications by fax or mail.

The only other countries with a copyright registration process are Albania, Argentina, Brazil, China, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Turkey. These countries have a government department or office where forms can be obtained and filled out to obtain registration. The UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have no registration system. In these countries, authors and creators can generally seek private registration. In the UK and Australia, for example, they can register and pay a fee to a private company, but no extra legal protection is gained. These two countries also have a process whereby publishers must deposit several copies of their work with national and other libraries, which acts as a form of copyright registration.

What is poor man’s copyright?

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Poor man’s copyright refers to the practice of an author placing their work in an envelope and mailing it to themselves. This will give the author a sealed envelope with a postmark on it giving the date it went through the postal system. The idea is that if copyright is disputed, the sealed, dated envelope can be used as proof that the work contained inside it is the author’s own and that it had been created by a certain date. However, there are no instances in US legal history where poor man’s copyright has been used to successfully prove ownership in a court of law.

Copyright is automatically established when the author creates an original and tangible piece of work, on paper, on tape or electronically. The work is protected under the Berne Convention, Article 2 (2), in any country that is a signatory to the convention. This includes all major countries and most of the smaller ones. Works covered include nearly all writing, as well as music, software and paintings. This means there is no need to try and protect one’s work through poor man’s copyright. However, in countries without a copyright office, mailing oneself may be seen as having some advantages in certain situations.

The main problem with poor man’s copyright is that it is by no means foolproof and is in fact quite easy to fake. There is usually nothing to stop someone sending themselves an empty unsealed envelope through the postal system. When the envelope arrives, the recipient can place anything they like in the envelope, including their own work or someone else’s. They then seal the envelope and can claim that the work was there before the date of the postal mark. Even a CD can be placed in an open envelope that already has a date stamp on it, and claimed as one’s own. This can be done by setting the computer clock a day or two before the stamp, and then burning the CD before putting it in the envelope and sealing it. But in any case, an envelope sealed in the first instance can be steamed open. Further, a date stamp can smudge or be unreadable from the start.

Most countries have no copyright office, making it potentially difficult to prove who has copyright and the date the work was created. Several government sites advise that as an option, authors could mail their work to themselves to help show copyright ownership. Even the UK’s Intellectual Property Office recommends the option of mailing oneself by special delivery so that a date stamp clearly appears on the envelope. Alternatives to mailing oneself include depositing work with a notary public, solicitor’s office, bank or taxation office. These methods are often included in a definition of poor man’s copyright, although they can be much more costly than mailing a letter, and may still not be proof of ownership.

In countries with a copyright office, registering one’s work is far preferable to relying on poor man’s copyright. The cost is more than using the mail, but registration has definite advantages over poor man’s copyright and can end up much cheaper in the event of legal action. Copyright details are on public record and the author has a certificate. In the US, if an author registers their work no more than five years after publication, it automatically qualifies as evidence in court. In the event of a successful court case, the author can get legal fees and statutory damages paid. Registration fees are quite reasonable. For example, basic online registration with the US Copyright Office costs $35. At the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, the fee is $50.

How long does a copyright last?

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Copyright gives an author or creator of a work the exclusive right to copy, distribute or change that work. This includes books and any other writings as well as things such as maps, photos, paintings, sculptures, sound recordings, films, computer programs, dramatic and dance works, and architectural creations. Copyright does not last forever though. Eventually, the work becomes part of the public domain, giving anyone the right to use it for any purpose, although this does not give a person the right to claim it as their own.

The usual duration of copyright before a work enters the public domain is either 50 or 70 years after the author’s or creator’s death. The length differs between countries. About 55 per cent of nations generally have a period of life plus 50 years, including Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and South Africa. The trend is towards longer durations and around 30 per cent of countries now stipulate life plus 70 years, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, European Union members, Israel, Russia and the United States.

Some countries have other lengths of time. Mexico has used life plus 100 years since 2003, with 75 years still applying to deaths before 1928. Cote d’Ivoire uses life and 99 years, Colombia uses 80 years, India and Venezuela 60 years, and Iran and Yemen 30 years. A few countries use 25 or 75 years. In Ethiopia, copyright expires on the death of the author or creator. Afghanistan, Laos and the Marshall Islands have no copyright laws.

A number of countries simply state that they follow international treaties such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, or the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), both of which specify a minimum of 50 years. These countries are included in the 55 per cent figure above.

Length of copyright in most countries is more complex than a simple number of years. Different rules often apply when an author or creator is anonymous, corporate or a government body. In these cases, the copyright period might be longer than 50 or 70 years after the work was first published, performed or broadcast. If an unknown author or creator is subsequently found, the term might revert to 50 or 70 years after their death.

In cases where a work is not published, performed or broadcast before the author’s death, copyright in some nations might exist for 50 or 70 years after the year the work is first made public. Thus copyright in these cases can last indefinitely. Further, copyright expiry is usually based on the number of years after the end of the calendar year of death. Also, many countries have different periods for certain items, for example, photos and works of art are often less than for written works.

A few countries that have changed their copyright terms apply the new legislation retroactively, such as Mexico, whereas most have retained the previous length of time for older works. For example, if the time was changed from life plus 50 years to 70 years in, say, 2005, the 50 year period applies to deaths up until 1955. In other words, for someone who died in, say, 1952, copyright still expired in 2002 rather than 2022.

Copyright duration in the US is quite complex and the term has been extended many times over the last two centuries. The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998 lengthened the period from 50 years to 70 years after the death of an author or creator, or from 75 years to 120 years after the creation of corporate or anonymous works or 95 years if the work was published.

The former periods had been set by the US Copyright Act of 1976. This Act, which was effective from 1978, eliminated the requirement for a work to be published or registered to qualify for copyright protection. Works registered or published between 1923 and 1977 have a copyright length of 95 years after publication, rather than a period based on date of death. However, copyright had to be renewed after 28 years. For works published from 1964 to 1977, this became automatic under the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992. Anything published before 1923 is no longer under copyright and is in the public domain.

In the European Union, the copyright laws of the various members were harmonised in the 1980s and 1990s. Copyright protection now lasts for the life of the author or creator plus 70 years in all member countries. Where a national law gave a longer duration as at 1 July 1995, this period remains at the original length. In countries that had a shorter copyright duration, certain works already in the public domain had their copyright restored.

The length of time a work is protected and other aspects of copyright can be complex and differ between countries. It is always wise to check a particular nation’s copyright laws and period until copyright expiry before thinking of using a particular work in any way. And remember, you cannot pass it off as your own, even if it is out of copyright.