Spirit Writing and the Law

As everyone knows, copyright comes to an end some time after the author (or composer or painter or ...) dies. You don't need the kind permission of the Estate of W. Shakespeare to recite the "to be or not to be" monologue.

But what about works created after the (literal) death of the author? I don't mean works that are published posthumously; I mean works dictated by dead people to mediums (media?).

Courts have had to grapple with this very issue. Sometimes, the spirits insist on it: "In the Urantia Foundation case, a message from the spirits told the parties to obtain copyright and trade mark registration."

This is an introduction to the approaches that courts have taken to the issue, with the (live) writer suggesting that similar answers might be given to the question of artistic works created by artificial intelligence. Unless, of course, artificial intelligence is less insistent on protecting its rights than certain spirits have been.