Copyright fans will like this article wherein University
of Tulsa English professor Robert Spoo asserts that
Ulysses lacks copyright in the US and falls under
Public Domain.

“The argument by the Joyce estate and Random
House for 1934 as the commencement of a
Ulysses copyright in the United States has no
basis in law, Spoo says. He explains that U.S.
copyright law in force in 1922 required foreign-
produced works in English to satisfy stringent
provisions ?which unabashedly protected our
domestic printers and book manufacturers.
Under that law, Joyce would have had to deposit
a copy of the book at the copyright office within
two months of publication in France, and then,
within another four months, have the book printed
on American soil by a U.S. printer. Spoo says
Joyce did not meet these requirements, thus
relinquishing his novel to the public domain.”

Spoo’s article was published in the Yale Law
Journal, Vol. 108, No. 3. You can receive a copy of
the article by emailing robert.spoo@yale.edu.