Librarians Are Finding Thousands Of Books No Longer Protected By Copyright Law; Vice, February 9, 2023

Claire Woodcock, Vice; Librarians Are Finding Thousands Of Books No Longer Protected By Copyright Law

Up to 75 percent of books published before 1964 may now be in the public domain, according to researchers at the New York Public Library. 

"On January 1, 2023, a swath of books, films, and songs entered the public domain. The public domain is not a place—it refers to all the creative works not protected by an intellectual property law like copyright. 

Creative works may not have intellectual property protections for a number of reasons. In most cases, the rights have expired or have been forfeited. Basically, no one holds the exclusive rights to these works, meaning that living artists today can sample and build off those works legally without asking anyone’s permission to do so. 

The books in question were published between 1923 and 1964, before changes to U.S. copyright law removed the requirement for rights holders to renew their copyrights. According to Greg Cram, associate general counsel and director of information policy at NYPL, an initial overview of books published in that period shows that around 65 to 75 percent of rights holders opted not to renew their copyrights. 

“That’s sort of a staggering figure,” Cram told Motherboard. “That’s 25 to 35 percent of books that were renewed, while the rest were not. That’s interesting for me as we think about copyright policy going forward.”"