Copyright and Trademark Dispute
The name Conan and the names of Robert E. Howard's other principal characters are claimed as trademarked by Paradox Entertainment of Stockholm, Sweden, through its US subsidiary Paradox Entertainment Inc. Paradox copyrights stories written by other authors under license from Conan Properties Inc.
However, since Robert E. Howard published his Conan stories at a time when the date of publication was the marker (1932 through 1963), and any new owners failed to renew them to maintain the copyrights, the exact copyright status of all of Howard's 'Conan' works is in question. In practice, most of the Conan stories exist in at least two versions subject to different copyright standards: The original Weird Tales publications before or shortly after Howard's death, which have been understood to be public domain, and "restored" versions based on manuscripts that were unpublished in Howard's lifetime.
The Australian site of Project Gutenberg has many Robert E. Howard stories, including several Conan stories.
In the United Kingdom, works fall into the public domain 70 years after the death of an author. Howard died in 1936.
Read more about this topic: Conan The Barbarian
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