tweet
advance! see what’s entering the public domain in 2020
You are reading: Books entering public domain 2019
January 1, 2019 is (finally) Public Domain Day: the 1923 works are open to all!
for the first time in more than 20 years, on january 1, 2019, published works will enter the u.s. public domain. uu. 1 the 1923 works will be free for all to use and develop, without permission or payment. They include dramatic movies like The Ten Commandments and comedies starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. There are literary works by Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton, the song “Charleston,” and more. And remember, this hasn’t happened for over 20 years. why? the 1923 works were set to enter the public domain in 1999, after a 75-year copyright period. But in 1998, Congress hit a two-decade pause button and extended the term of copyright by 20 years, giving works published between 1923 and 1977 an extended term of 95 years.2
but now the drought is over. how will people celebrate this treasure trove of cultural material? Google Books will offer the full text of that year’s books, rather than showing only partial views or authorized previews. the internet archive will add books, movies, music and more to your online library. hathitrust has made more than 50,000 titles available in its digital library since 1923. community theaters are planning showings of the films. students will have the freedom to adapt and publicly perform the music. Because these works are in the public domain, they can be made available by anyone, where they can be rediscovered and enjoyed. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print – see here, here, and here.) Plus, copyright expiration means you’re free. to use these materials for education, research, or creative endeavors, whether it’s translating the books, making your own versions of the movies, or creating new music based on old classics.
These are some of the works that will enter the public domain in 2019. A more complete (but still partial) list of over a thousand works we’ve researched can be found here. (You can click on some of the titles below to get to the new public domain works.)
movies
See Also: Can&x27t Confirm That Quotation? Search Google Books | KQED
Of course, 1923 was a long time ago. (Under the 56-year copyright period that existed until 1978, we could be seeing works from 1962 enter the public domain in 2019.) Unfortunately, the fact that the 1923 works are legally available does not mean that they are actually available. many of these works are lost entirely or literally disintegrate (as is the case with old films and recordings), evidence of how long copyright terms affect the preservation of cultural artifacts. for the works that have survived, however, their long-awaited entry into the public domain remains something to celebrate.
Technically, many works from 1923 may have already entered the public domain decades ago because copyright owners failed to go through the “formalities” that used to be necessary for copyright protection. back then, your work entered the public domain if it did not include a copyright notice, e.g. “copyright 1923 charlie chaplin”—upon publication, or if you did not renew the copyright after 28 years. current copyright law no longer has these requirements. but, even though those works may technically be in the public domain, as a practical matter the public often has to assume that they are still in copyright (or risk a lawsuit) because relevant copyright information is difficult or impossible to find: the oldest records may be fragmentary, confused or lost. This is why January 1, 2019 is so significant. on that date, the public will know that works published in 1923 are free for public use without tedious or inconclusive research.
for example, in 2019, we will know that robert frost’s famous poem “stopping by woods on a snowy night” is in the public domain because the copyright on the collection containing the poem, new hampshire, expires. (the poem may have entered the public domain before because it was first published in a magazine and the previous copyright was not renewed on time – see the discussion thread here – but we can be sure its copyright expired in 2019). The Frost Estate has used copyright law to strictly control the uses of his works. Eric Whitacre, who composed the incredible virtual choral works, found this out the hard way when he wrote a piece in memory of a couple who had died within weeks of each other after being married for fifty years. the piece was commissioned by the couple’s daughter, whose favorite poem was “Passing through the woods on a snowy night”. Whitacre wrote a choral play based on the poem, and it was so well received that other directors began asking him for the play. type:
after a long legal battle (many letters, many proxies), robert frost’s estate and his publisher, henry holt inc., severely and formally prohibited me from using the poem for publication or performance… i was heartbroken. the piece was dead and would remain under my bed for the next 37 years due to a ridiculous decision by heirs and lawyers.
(he eventually asked poet charles anthony silvestri to write new words to the music that had been set to frost’s poem, you can watch the virtual choir’s performance of that composition here and read his full story here; please note that frost’s lawyers were wrong about when the copyright ends, as stated above, it expires in 2019, if it hasn’t already). As of 2019, the next Whitacre will not face this frustration, and anyone can use this powerful poem in his own creations.
Note that copyright law has a way of introducing complexities into any analysis. there are some familiar works that appear to be from 1923, but will not in fact enter the public domain in 2019 due to publication details. one is felix salten’s bambi, a life in the woods, the basis of the famous disney movie. Salten first published it in Germany without a copyright notice in 1923, then republished it with a compliant copyright notice in 1926. When Disney (of all companies) claimed that Bambi was in the public domain, A court disagreed, holding that because the original 1923 publication was in Germany, the failure to include a copyright notice did not put the book in the United States public domain. the 1926 publication was valid, so the book’s copyright expires after 95 years in 2022.4 (full court opinion here). Additionally, while copyrights on several Jelly Roll Morton songs expire in 2019, his famous “King Porter Stomp” was not copyrighted. until 1924 (although it was registered in 1923), so it will not enter the public domain until 2020.
As a precaution, our list above only includes works for which we were able to track notice and renewal data, suggesting that they are, in fact, still copyrighted as of 2019. We have also compiled, to the best of our abilities research: a more complete spreadsheet showing other renewed works from 1923. can be found here. but we want to emphasize that this is only a partial collection; many more works are also entering the public domain, but we couldn’t find the legal minutiae to confirm their copyright status.
It’s a Wonderful Public Domain. . . . What happens when works enter the public domain? Sometimes, wonderful things. The 1947 film It’s A Wonderful Life entered the public domain in 1975 because its copyright was not properly renewed after the first 28-year term. The film had been a flop on release, but thanks to its public domain status, it became a holiday classic. Why? Because TV networks were free to show it over and over again during the holidays, making the film immensely popular. But then copyright law reentered the picture. . . . In 1993, the film’s original copyright holder, capitalizing on a recent Supreme Court case, reasserted copyright based on its ownership of the film’s musical score and the short story on which the film was based (the film itself is still in the public domain). Ironically, a film that only became a success because of its public domain status was pulled back into copyright.
What Could Have Been
What Could Have BeenSee Also: Lottery Dream Numbers – Convert Dreams to Lottery Numbers Tool
The 1923 works finally enter the public domain, after a copyright period of 95 years. however, under laws that were in place until 1978, thousands of works from 1962 would enter the public domain this year. they range from the books a wrinkle in time and the guns of august, to the movie lawrence of arabia and the song blowing on the wind, and much more. take a look at some of the others. in fact, since copyright used to come on renewable 28-year terms, and 85% of authors didn’t renew, 85% of works from 1990 could be entering the public domain! Imagine what the world’s great libraries, or just internet hobbyists, could do: digitize those holdings, make them available for education and research, for pleasure, and for creative reuse.
Do you want to know more about the public domain? Here’s the legal background on how we got our current copyright terms (including summaries of recent court cases), why the public domain matters, and answers to frequently asked questions. You can also read James Boyle’s book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press, 2008); Of course, you may read the full text of the public domain online free of charge, and you may copy and redistribute it for non-commercial purposes. You can also read “In an Ambiguous Battle: The Promise (and Pathos) of Public Domain Day,” an article by Center Director Jennifer Jenkins that reveals the promise and limits of various attempts to reverse the erosion of the domain public, and a short article in the huffington post celebrating an earlier public domain day.
1 No published works have entered our public domain since 1998. However, a small subset of works (unpublished works that were not registered with the copyright office copyright before 1978) have been entering the public domain after a lifetime plus 70 copyrights. but, because these works were never published, they are much less likely to be found by potential users. furthermore, it is difficult to determine whether the works were “published” for copyright purposes. therefore, this site focuses on the thousands of published works that ultimately enter the public domain. Note that unpublished works that were properly registered with the copyright office in 1923 are also entering the public domain; for those works, copyright was secured on the date of registration.
2 works published between 1923 and 1977 had to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the 95-year term: all had to be published with a copyright notice, and works from 1923 to 1963 also had to renew their rights copyright after the initial term of 28 years.
3 the public domain music list refers to the “musical composition” (the underlying music and lyrics), not the sound recordings of those compositions. federal copyrights did not cover pre-1972 sound recordings (although pre-1972 sound recordings were protected under the laws of some states). however, a new 2018 law called the Music Modernization Act has federalized copyright for pre-1972 sound recordings, in order to clarify the confusing patchwork of state law protections. For more information on this law, see the copyright office summary.
4 foreign works from 1923 are still copyrighted in the us. uu. through 2019 if they 1) have complied with us notice and renewal formalities. USA, 2) were published in the USA. uu. within 30 days of foreign publication, or 3) if neither of these are true, they were still copyrighted in their country of origin as of 1/1/96. note that the term of copyright for older works is different in other countries: in the eu, works by authors who died in 1948 will enter the public domain in 2019 after a lifetime plus 70 years, and In Canada, works by authors who died in 1968 will enter the public domain after a lifetime plus 50 years.
Special thanks to our tirelessly talented research expert and website guru balfour smith for building this site and compiling the list of works since 1923.
Public Domain Day 2019 from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License.
See Also: Real Estate Audiobooks in Money & Finance | Audible.com