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A Massive Amount of Iconic Works Will Enter the Public Domain on New Year’s Eve

posted by takyon on Monday December 31 2018, @07:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the promote-the-useful-arts dept.

el_oscuro writes:

From Motherboard

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, movies, songs, and books created in the United States in 1923—even beloved cartoons such as Felix the Cat—will be eligible for anyone to adapt, repurpose, or distribute as they please.

A 20-year freeze on copyright expirations has prevented a cache of 1923 works from entering the public domain, including Paramount Pictures' The Ten Commandments, Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim, and novels by Aldous Huxley.

Such a massive release of iconic works is unprecedented, experts say—especially in the digital age, as the last big dump predated Google.

In 2013, Paul Heald, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, conducted a survey of books for sale on Amazon. He found that more books were for sale from the 1880s than the 1980s.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by RandomFactor on Monday December 31 2018, @07:59PM (2 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 31 2018, @07:59PM (#780368) Journal

    This is Disney's unforgivable sin. It cannot and should not be forgotten.

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    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 31 2018, @10:06PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 31 2018, @10:06PM (#780399) Journal

    It's already forgotten. Disney is making money hand over fist, and all of America is happy to fork their own hard-earned money into Disney's coffers. America's response to Disney's insult was to bat an eye, and briefly mutter a round-mouthed "OHHH". Next day, it was forgotten.

    • (Score: 2) by exaeta on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:11AM

      by exaeta (6957) on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:11AM (#780794) Homepage Journal
      Disney is the root of all evil. Seriously, almost all of our economic problems can be traced to disney and other media companies.
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      The Government is a Bird