"Every country in the world" may not be as difficult to monitor as it would first seem because there are unilateral copyright agreements which apply equally to all the signitories. It's simply a matter of waiting until the last of these has expired. Does anyone happen to know if there are any copyright protection periods which extend LONGER than Europe's 70 years?

I run a small publishing company in a specialist field (harp music) and am currently seeking a license for a piece of music whose composer died in 1971 so it's still in copyright. His original publishing contract was in America, where he was born and worked, but after a long merry-go-round ride, I wound up having to deal with a well-established British firm in this matter. They said they could issue me a license for Europe but "rest-of-world" rights (which they designated with the acronym ROW so presumably it's a recognised legal term) would have to be negotiated separately and they would tell me where to apply. This leads me to hope that there will be only two licenses to seek. I'm in the midst of handling the admin for this, so don't have any firm conclusions to report. And, of course, I'm only speaking about one piece of music. But no copyright period lasts forever, so surely it's just a matter of waiting out the lengthiest one (however long that is).

There must be a website or resource that gives all he different agreements and their time periods. Richard Bridge could probably shed some useful light on this -