Posted on 01/02/2020 2:50:59 PM PST by yesthatjallen
As the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, thousands of copyrighted works will finally enter the public domain. That includes books, movies, sheet music, and all sorts of creative works, first published in the U.S. in 1924.
When a work enters the public domain, it’s no longer protected by copyright. The public can use and consume it, without permission and at no cost. Without the public domain, we wouldn’t have so much art that riffs on the work of authors including Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.
These mass expirations used to happen every year. But in 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act which extended copyright protections for existing works for 20 years. In 2019, we saw the first public domain dump since 1998.
Jennifer Jenkins, a clinical professor of law and director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University, joined The Takeaway to discuss the importance of the public domain and what will be entering it on January 1st.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at wnycstudios.org ...
More recent copyright registrations (from 1950 and later) are also available via this site, as are historic registrations from 1924 and earlier (all of which have by now expired).
Copyrighted works can be made copyleft through licensing arrangements effectively making them available for free public use.
The music for George Gershwin, “Rhapsody in Blue” (c) 1924, entered public domain yesterday. Recordings can still be copyrighted
As I understand it, US copyright laws are designed to protect the Disney Company’s mouse.
I believe it was Orin Hatch who helped change the rules.
+1.
Project Gutenberg has been digitizing public domain texts for several decades.
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for enjoyment and education.
Who donates to the politicians that write patent and copyright law?
Not inventors or authors.
We now have patent laws that do NOT reward inventors (as the Constitution specifically requires) but that reward whomever gets the patent.
Nuts.
Thank goodness that we have politicians willing to take big donations from big corporations. They and their lawyers need to be protected against the greedy little guys who came up with the ideas. /s
Sonny Bono
Copyright law is insane.
It’s questionable whether they should last the entire lifetime of the creator and it’s sheer madness that they last so long after the death of the creator.
It should be illegal to feed my reading addiction. Glad it isn’t thanks for the post.
It should be illegal to feed my reading addiction. Glad it isn’t thanks for the post.
p
I wonder when Hemingway’s works will go into the PD???
It’s about time this finally is a thing again. For far too long the companies like Disney have been hijacking the copyright laws in ways that are beyond unreasonable. I feel the whole system needs to be changed in a way that benefits the everyday American as well as still fair to the companies.
I have always considered reasonable, a one time 20 year copyright on movies, TV shows, music, books (with a few exceptions) and paintings etc. And when it comes to stuff like magazines, software, video games, and books dedicated to software and whatnot a one time 5 year copyright due to the fact that they’re often outdated and only limited for a short while. The only catch is to keep it that way it has to be available otherwise it’s waived. Companies would make their money early on and the rest of us would benefit greatly in the long run.
Considering original US copyright was 14 years with a 14 year renewal.
Scientology also did a lot of lobbying and strong arming to prevent Hubbard's works from going public domain
In my opinion you should be given a choice when you copyright. 25 years transferrable to your heirs or your lifetime non transferrable.
Thank you!
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