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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2018, @10:44PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2018, @10:44PM (#780411)

    Doesnt anyone else see the problem in this?

    This is not cause for celebration, its time to get pissed off and get out the flaming pitchforks.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @03:20AM (#780514)

    Great. But at who specifically?

    • (Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Tuesday January 01 2019, @12:15PM

      by J_Darnley (5679) on Tuesday January 01 2019, @12:15PM (#780603)

      Disney? Aren't they responsible for the most recent, retroactive copyright extension?