Wicked and the Importance of the Public Domain; Reason, January 1, 2025

JOE LANCASTER , Reason; Wicked and the Importance of the Public Domain

"But at the moment there is perhaps no better testament to the importance of the public domain than Wicked."

POPEYE, ‘THE SKELETON DANCE,’ AND ‘SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN’ ENTER THE PUBLIC DOMAIN; Rolling Stone, January 1, 2025

DANIEL KREPS, Rolling Stone ; POPEYE, ‘THE SKELETON DANCE,’ AND ‘SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN’ ENTER THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

"The first iteration of Popeye the Sailor, literary classics by Dashiell Hammett and William Faulkner, Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, and songs like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” are among the copyrighted works that will enter the public domain on Jan. 1.

 

As the calendar turns on New Year’s Day, thousands of copyrighted works across literature, film, and music from 1929 become open to fair use. This year’s slate also includes the French comic icon Tintin, Disney’s still-iconic The Skeleton Dance short (38 million views on YouTube!), Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front (the original German text became public domain last year).

Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, documents each year’s Public Domain Day highlights on the center’s website.

 

“For copyrighted culture, the public domain arrives only after a long wait,” Jenkins wrote of the 2025 entrants. “Works from 1929 were first set to go into the public domain after a 56-year term in 1985, but a term extension pushed that date to 2005. They were then supposed to go into the public domain in 2005 after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit another 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years. Now the wait is over.” (For sound recordings, the copyright term is 100 years.) 

Public Domain Day in 2024 was highlighted by the arrival of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, as the first iteration of those characters — as featured in the 1928 short Steamboat Willie — became free to use."

Column: A Faulkner classic and Popeye enter the public domain while copyright only gets more confusing; Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2024

Michael Hiltzik , Los Angeles Times; Column: A Faulkner classic and Popeye enter the public domain while copyright only gets more confusing

"The annual flow of copyrighted works into the public domain underscores how the progressive lengthening of copyright protection is counter to the public interest—indeed, to the interests of creative artists. The initial U.S. copyright act, passed in 1790, provided for a term of 28 years including a 14-year renewal. In 1909, that was extended to 56 years including a 28-year renewal.

In 1976, the term was changed to the creator’s life plus 50 years. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act, which is known as the Sonny Bono Act after its chief promoter on Capitol Hill. That law extended the basic term to life plus 70 years; works for hire (in which a third party owns the rights to a creative work), pseudonymous and anonymous works were protected for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

Along the way, Congress extended copyright protection from written works to movies, recordings, performances and ultimately to almost all works, both published and unpublished.

Once a work enters the public domain, Jenkins observes, “community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees. Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books and the New York Public Library can make works fully available online. This helps enable both access to and preservation of cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history.”"

Happy Public Domain Day! Popeye, ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ ‘The Sound and the Fury’ and Thousands of Other Captivating Creations Are Finally Free for Everyone to Use; Smithsonian Magazine, December 30, 2024

Ellen Wexler, Smithsonian Magazine ; Happy Public Domain Day! Popeye, ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ ‘The Sound and the Fury’ and Thousands of Other Captivating Creations Are Finally Free for Everyone to Use

"On January 1, 2025, Popeye—along with thousands of other copyrighted creations—will enter the public domain in the United States.

Every year, Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University School of Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, publishes an exhaustive analysis of some of the most important works entering the public domain. This year, the list includes copyrighted titles from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924.

Works enter the public domain when their copyrights expire, typically 95 years after publication. At that point, they become free for anyone to adapt or build upon without permission—with a few caveats. Copyrights to audio recordings, meanwhile, expire 100 years after they were first put to wax...

As Jenkins points out, many of the celebrated classics entering the public domain this year were themselves built atop other public domain works. Disney featured more than a dozen copyright-free songs in its 1929 Mickey cartoons. William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, which enters public domain on January 1, gets its name from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “[Life] is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Faulkner, Jenkins writes, is an “author of a timeless work that took from the public domain and now gives back to it.”"

A Farewell to Copyright: International Public Domain Day 2025; Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives, December 23, 2024

Eden I., Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives; A Farewell to Copyright: International Public Domain Day 2025

"On January 1, 2025, any work published with a copyright notice in the United States in 1929 enters the public domain. Many notable works have been entering the public domain after a 20-year pause beginning in 1999. In recent years, works like The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Disney’s Steamboat Willie have famously entered the public domain. 

What is public domain, and why is it important? Public domain simply means that a work is no longer subject to copyright and is available to the public as a whole. The work is free to be copied in its entirety, reused, adapted, or distributed. The public domain is like a sandbox of works the public can use to play and create. ...

Here in Special Collections and Archives, we are concerned with the copyright surrounding both published and unpublished works. Unpublished works in which the creator died before 1955 will be in the public domain at the beginning of 2025. For unpublished works created by a company, the copyright does not expire until 120 years after the work was created. For many of these unpublished works though, the copyright was transferred to Special Collections and Archives when the physical collection was donated."

A farewell to copyright protection for Hemingway, Hammett — and Popeye; Marketplace, December 25, 2024

 Matt Levin, Marketplace; A farewell to copyright protection for Hemingway, Hammett — and Popeye

"Let’s say you’re a hip-hop artist and for whatever reason, you want to spit bars over a sample of the jazz standard “Everybody Loves My Baby” with Louis Armstrong on cornet.

In 2024, that’s a hassle. “You’ve got to clear the sound recording copyright, and that is easier said than done,” explained Jennifer Jenkins, a professor at Duke Law School. “You have to figure out who owns it. You’ve got to find them. You’ve got to get them to respond to you, and you’ve got to negotiate a deal.”

But once the ball drops at midnight Jan. 1, you can remix that Satchmo recording to your heart’s content, no contracts required."

January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924!; Center for the Study of the Public Domain

 Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle

Directors, Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain
CC BY 4.0, Center for the Study of the Public Domain; January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924!

"Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different.[1]

On January 1, 2025, thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon.[2] 2025 marks a milestone: all of the books, films, songs, and art published in the 1920s will now be public domain. The literary highlights from 1929 include The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. In film, Mickey Mouse speaks his first words, the Marx Brothers star in their first feature film, and legendary directors from Alfred Hitchcock to John Ford made their first sound films. From comic strips, the original Popeye and Tintin characters will enter the public domain. Among the newly public domain compositions are Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Ravel’s Bolero, Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, and the musical number Singin’ in the Rain. Below is just a handful of the works that will be in the US public domain in 2025.[3] To find more material from 1929, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.

The title of Faulkner’s novel was itself taken from a public domain work, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and its lament over the seeming meaningless of life. “Life…is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” The Sound and the Fury was published on October 7, 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression."

Disney loses famous Mickey Mouse copyright in 2024, along with many others; CBS News, December 30, 2023

CBS News ; Disney loses famous Mickey Mouse copyright in 2024, along with many others

"Copyright protections on many well-known books, films and musical compositions are set to expire in 2024. Disney's Mickey Mouse is getting a lot of attention as one famous iteration of the classic mouse is set to enter the public domain. CBS News' Jo Ling Kent has the story."

Mickey Mouse, Long a Symbol in Copyright Wars, to Enter Public Domain: ‘It’s Finally Happening’; Variety, December 22, 2023

 Gene Maddaus, Variety; Mickey Mouse, Long a Symbol in Copyright Wars, to Enter Public Domain: ‘It’s Finally Happening’

"Every Jan. 1, Jenkins celebrates Public Domain Day, publishing a long list of works that are now free for artists to remix and reimagine. This year’s list includes Tigger, who, like Mickey Mouse, made his first appearance in 1928. Other 1928 works include “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Buster Keaton’s “The Cameraman.” 

The celebrations are relatively recent. After Congress extended copyright terms in 1998, 20 years went by when nothing entered the public domain. Works began to lose copyright protection again in 2019, and since then, it’s been open season on “The Great Gatsby,” “Rhapsody in Blue” and Winnie the Pooh...

Lessig fought the extension all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that Congress might keep granting extensions, thwarting the constitutional mandate that copyrights be “for limited times.” He lost, 7-2, but the debate helped advance the movement for Creative Commons and an appreciation for the benefits of “remix culture.”

“That movement awoke people to the essential need for balance in this,” Lessig said. “At the beginning of this fight, it was a simple battle between the pirates and the property owners. And by the end of that period, people recognized that there’s a much wider range of interests that were involved here, like education and access to knowledge.”...

He continues to support reforms that would free up a vast body of cultural output that remains inaccessible because it lacks commercial value and its ownership cannot be determined."

Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day; The Guardian, January 1, 2023

John Naughton, The Guardian; Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day

"The issue highlighted by Public Domain Day is not that intellectual property is evil but that aspects of it – especially copyright – have been monopolised and weaponised by corporate interests and that legislators have been supine in the face of their lobbying. Authors and inventors need protection against being ripped off. It’s obviously important that clever people are rewarded for their creativity and the patent system does that quite well. But if a patent only lasts for 20 years, why on earth should copyright last for life plus 70 years for a novel? You only have to ask the question to realise that the founders of the American republic at least got that one right. Happy new year."

January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all!; Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, January 1, 2023

Jennifer Jenkins, Director; Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain ; January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all!

"On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. 1  They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These include Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis and Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and a novelty song about ice cream. Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different."

Sherlock Holmes will finally escape copyright this weekend; The Verge, December 28, 2022

 ADI ROBERTSON, The Verge ; Sherlock Holmes will finally escape copyright this weekend

"Watching the copyrights on art expire still feels like a novelty. After all, the US public domain was frozen in time for 20 years, thawing only in 2019. But this weekend’s Public Domain Day will give our cultural commons a few particularly notable new works. As outlined by Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, the start of 2023 will mark the end of US copyrights on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes stories — along with the seminal science fiction movie Metropolis, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and the first full-length “talkie” film The Jazz Singer."

‘Pooh,’ ‘Sun Also Rises’ among works going public in 2022; Associated Press, December 31, 2022

 Associated Press; ‘Pooh,’ ‘Sun Also Rises’ among works going public in 2022

"“Winnie the Pooh” and “The Sun Also Rises” are going public. 

A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s book and Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel, along with films starring Buster Keaton and Greta Garbo are among the works from 1926 whose copyrights will expire Saturday, putting them in the public domain as the calendar flips to 2022. 

Poetry collections “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes and “Enough Rope” by Dorothy Parker will also turn 95 and enter the public domain under U.S. law. 

The silent films “Battling Butler” starring and directed by Buster Keaton, “The Temptress” starring Greta Garbo, “The Son of the Sheik” starring Rudolph Valentino, and “For Heaven’s Sake” starring Harold Lloyd are also becoming public property. 

And under 2018 legislation by Congress, sound recordings from the earliest area of electronic audio will become available."

The Great Gatsby prequel set for release days after copyright expires; The Guardian, July 15, 2020

Alison Flood, The Guardian; The Great Gatsby prequel set for release days after copyright expires

"US copyright in The Great Gatsby, which is generally regarded as one of the best novels ever written, expires on 1 January 2021, meaning that the work enters the public domain and can be freely adapted for the first time. Farris Smith’s prequel, Nick, will be published four days later, on 5 January, in the US, by Little, Brown; and on 25 February in the UK by No Exit Press."

January 1, 2019 is (finally) Public Domain Day: Works from 1923 are open to all!; Center for the Study of the Public Domain, January 2019

Center for the Study of the Public Domain;

January 1, 2019 is (finally) Public Domain Day: Works from 1923 are open to all!

"For the first time in over 20 years, on January 1, 2019, published works will enter the US public domain.1 Works from 1923 will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. They include dramatic films such as The Ten Commandments, and comedies featuring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. There are literary works by Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton, the “Charleston” song, and more. And remember, this has not happened for over 20 years. Why? Works from 1923 were set to go into the public domain in 1999, after a 75-year copyright term. But in 1998 Congress hit a two-decade pause button and extended their copyright term for 20 years, giving works published between 1923 and 1977 an expanded term of 95 years.2
But now the drought is over. How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library.

HathiTrust has made over 50,000 titles from 1923 available in its digital library. Community theaters are planning screenings of the films. Students will be free to adapt and publicly perform the music. Because these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available, where you can rediscover and enjoy them. (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.) In addition, the expiration of copyright means that you’re free to use these materials, for education, for research, or for creative endeavors—whether it’s translating the books, making your own versions of the films, or building new music based on old classics.

Here are some of the works that will be entering the public domain in 2019. A fuller (but still partial) listing of over a thousand works that we have researched can be found here. (You can click on some of the titles below to get the newly public domain works.)"

Happy public domain day: here's what copyright term extension stole from you in 2015; BoingBoing.net, 12/31/15

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net; Happy public domain day: here's what copyright term extension stole from you in 2015:

"When Congress amended US copyright law in 1976, they extended the copyrights on works whose creators had produced them with the promise of not more than 56 years. Since then, almost nothing has entered the US public domain.

Every year, Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle at the Duke Center for the Public Domain list out all the works that today's artists would be free to work from -- as the creators who got their copyrights extended in 76 did -- except for the retroactive extension of copyright terms.

This year, we lost a lot of good stuff."

Frankenstein TV: what happens when literary classics drop out of copyright; Guardian, 11/16/15

Mark Lawson, Guardian; Frankenstein TV: what happens when literary classics drop out of copyright:

"One reason that the field of Brit Lit spin-offs is becoming so crowded is that Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson invented archetypes and situations that are familiar even to people who have never read the books. This rapid name-recognition is presumably why Fox originally gave its planned drama about a dead cop who is brought back to life to solve mysteries the title Frankenstein, even though it has no more than a vague metaphorical connection with the Shelley story. After objections of literary grave-robbing, the series is now, more sensibly, called Second Chance.

In tight financial times, it is also financially canny to plunder the vaults of out-of-copyright books. Adapt a classic novel that is still controlled by an estate and the budget is swollen by a rights fee, with the additional risk that the keepers of the author’s flame may also interfere artistically. Some copyright holders have been so acquisitive or restrictive that, for a decade or so, cultural democrats in various countries have celebrated Public Domain Day on 1 January each year, the date on which literary copyrights cease, 70 years after the writer’s death in many territories, but 95 in America. TV producers, you suspect, are among those whooping most exuberantly as another crop of plots and protagonists become free."

Can We Strengthen our Fragile Public Domain?; Library Journal, 2/12/15

Kevin L. Smith, Library Journal; Can We Strengthen our Fragile Public Domain? :

"In fact, even in the United States there has been some recognition that the Sonny Bono extension has done more harm than good. In a 2013 paper called, apparently without irony, “The Next Great Copyright Act,” Registrar of Copyrights Maria Pallante acknowledges that the copyright term is very long and that its length “has consequences” and needs to be made “more functional” (see pages 336-7). Although she stops short of asking Congress to repeal the 20-year extension, she does suggest “offsets” to mitigate the harm that has been done. Pallante is a far cry from being a “copyleft” radical; like previous Registrars, she tends to favor the interests of big content industries. So her suggestion that the term of copyright be readjusted because it is too long is a remarkable acknowledgement of the problem we have created.

Public Domain Day is one more reminder that our copyright laws in the U.S. have tipped the balance of protection too far away from its public interest roots."