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Works from 1925 are now open to all! The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School's blog covers the famous works which rise to the public domain on January 1st, 2021.
On January 1, 2021, copyrighted works from 1925 will enter the US public domain,1 where they will be free for all to use and build upon. These works include books such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial (in the original German), silent films featuring Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, and music ranging from the jazz standard Sweet Georgia Brown to songs by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, W.C. Handy, and Fats Waller.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessley into the past."
F. Scott Fitsgerald, The Great GatsbyThis is not just the famous last line from The Great Gatsby. It also encapsulates what the public domain is all about. A culture is a continuing conversation between present and past. On Public Domain Day, we all have a “green light,” in keeping with the Gatsby theme, to use one more year of that rich cultural past, without permission or fee.
1925 was a good year for music. Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton were some of those active then. Though some consider it the best year so far for great books and many classics were published then, among them is the original German version of the all too relevant The Trial by Franz Kafka.
Previously:
(2020) Internet Archive Files Answer and Affirmative Defenses to Publisher Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
(2020) Internet Archive Ends “Emergency Library” Early to Appease Publishers
(2020) Project Gutenberg Public Domain Library Blocked in Italy for Copyright Infringement
(2020) ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ Turns 120
(2020) University Libraries Offer Online "Lending" of Scanned In-Copyright Books
(2019) The House Votes in Favor of Disastrous Copyright Bill
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:25PM (35 children)
This is a difficult one. Let's say you write some software in 1990. While you've updated some parts of it like UI, the core logic is the same, people are buying it, it still works.
What you're saying is anyone can now take your source code, change the name and logo, and sell it as their product. Now what would be your reasoning for making that ok? I'm not saying it's not ok for someone to make a product with the exact functionality. I'm saying if the copyright expires, they literally can take the thing your wrote and are selling, call it theirs, and sell it to your customers for a dollar less.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:45PM (11 children)
I registered the copyright to HRG, a program that software-hacked the Radio Shack MC-10 to actually display graphics, back in 1983. That copyright is still valid despite the fact that the computer it was written for hasn't been produced since 1985. That copyright is now entirely worthless.
I have a shelf full of 16 bit video games that are less than 30 years old. Pray tell me where I might find a computer that still works that will run Screamer and Road Rash?
This is the United States, although I realize you may be British or Canadian, but here, our constitution states that congress can protect works "for limited times" to produce those works in the first place. A corporate work like Steamboat Willie loses copyright after 95 years while my copyrights last for 95 years after I die. How in the flamingly stupid hell can Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison be convinced to create more works?
Every copyright law after 1909 should be repealed.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:53PM (8 children)
And what I am saying is you should be free to write your own program to duplicate that functionality, but you should not be free to take that program, call it something else, and sell it. I'm not sure where the confusion is. I'm not defending current copyright law - I am suggesting what it should look like.
Let's apply what I'm suggesting to your example. I'm suggesting you should have been able to record your own version of Purple Haze, and sell it, the day it's released, without paying JH anything. At the same time, you cannot take a recording he made, burn a CD of it, and sell it, probably till after his kids die.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:22PM (2 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:24PM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @10:01PM
Copy, sell, and this is the big one: create and sell derivative works. That was the intent behind copyright being limited term, to encourage creation of new works. The current system smothers that by preventing old works from entering the public domain while they are still culturally relevant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 03 2021, @03:30AM (1 child)
Sounds like you're confusing copyright protection with plagiarism protection. Quite understandable -- publishers have done much to foster all kinds of confusion on these matters.
We don't have explicit protections against plagiarism, that I know of. IANAL but I suppose plagiarism is a form of fraud and misrepresentation, and can be prosecuted as such. Still, as unethical acts go, it's a little weird how it is handled. The injured party has to sue. Or, it has to be handled by the organization, usually a school, who may fail or even expel a student for plagiarism. Otherwise, nobody much cares, nor will do anything about it. The police sure won't do anything about an act of plagiarism. Nor should they! Bad enough that they are sometimes used to arrest people for digital piracy.
As to selling copies of someone else's design yourself, it could be argued that comes under the heading of counterfeiting. Depends on the details. No one is going to be fooled into mistaking a cover of a song for the original, nor is anyone trying to do that. Paintings have been successfully counterfeited, so well that it took a great deal of examination to tell that the fakes were fake, but not performances of songs.
Would be good to have clarity on all these nuances. Good terminology is very helpful. Instead, the interested industries have made a policy of trying to confuse the public and conflate things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2021, @09:30AM
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 04 2021, @10:06PM (2 children)
My point seemed to whizz right over your head, did you duck? twenty year old code is worthless. Thirty two bit programs run poorly on my newest computer, and my twenty year old games won't run at all. And again, all you can copyright is the code, which will be worthless on any other chip family. Your copyright is only as useful as your code, which is useless when the hardware is obsolete.
And the elephant: why should my works retain copyright a decade short of a century after I'm dead? You really think that copyright will induce me to write another novel after I die?
Why should the Bono Act not be repealed?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Monday January 04 2021, @10:29PM (1 child)
you know what you should do instead of worrying about putting things in bold? look into the code running at banks and air traffic control. in fact, there's code literally written for a mainframe 50 years ago that runs on a mainframe today, in production.
you seem like a guy who hasn't had a real job at a real company. 20+ year code is... most of the code out there running the world where you're a user.
>why should my works retain copyright a decade short of a century after I'm dead
I don't know, why don't you tell me, since you're the only one here who said that.
what's funny is when people who aren't in the industry say dumb things, and put those things in bold.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 14 2021, @08:01PM
You still haven't explained why copyright should last longer than patents. That 20 year old code running on a 20 year old mainframe is no longer available, yet is still under copyright. Where I worked, they used SAS, a mainframe program for statistics. You can only rent it, at $750 per user per year, and like all software is frequently updated. You want to reward thieves!
Copyright was allowed in order to induce creators to create further works. You're going to talk John Lennon into making another album?
Since the Bono Act was passed in the late '90s, Copyright lasts 95 years past the author's death, you can look it up. If it's a work for hire, the duration is 95 years. Works copyrighted 1925 are just now entering the public domain. The original US copyright was 14 years, and the Constitution says "for limited times" and SCOTUS said "limited" means whatever congress says it means. That was just wrong.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday January 04 2021, @01:01AM (1 child)
EA's Road Rash was originally made for the Sega Genesis console (called Mega Drive outside North America). My cousin just got a Genesis for Christmas, December 25, 2020.
In theory, the estates of those musicians can be convinced to finish and publish those musicians' unpublished works.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 04 2021, @10:14PM
In theory, the estates of those musicians can be convinced to finish and publish those musicians' unpublished works.
I'm not getting paid for any of the electrical towers my late dad, a lineman, built. Why should Sony Bono's grandkids get checks for his shit? As someone pointed out previously, copyrights were originally fourteen years TO INDUCE THEM TO CREATE MORE WORKS. Not to induce their grandchildren to do anything, let the damned grandkids do their own thing if they're talented.
Sorry to raise my voice but people aren't listening.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:49PM (3 children)
Oh, and I forgot to mention, you can only copyright the code, not the algorithms. I say after fourteen years your week's work on that program, or that year's work on that novel, is plenty of payment.
Also, creative types don't need to be bribed to create, we're compelled to. All we need is the time to do it in.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:58PM
Yep, completely agree on the algorithm part. In fact, I'd say an algorithm you come up with is a trade secret, and anyone should be able to duplicate it day1 after its creation. It's up to you to keep it secret. Of course, with decompiling your binary that's an issue, but a separate issue, and the decompiling is covered by a very different law we don't like.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:01PM (1 child)
My grandfather was an early member of ASCAP, so my perspective is a bit skewed on this, but while yes, we will create, it sure would give us a lot more time to create if we were getting paid to do it. All too often, I've seen this idea used to justify the idea that musicians, artists, coders, and lots of other people create for free so that venue owners or event organizers or some other non-creative work can make money.
In short, if Youtube is getting paid, the person who created the video should get paid.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @10:06PM
As GP said, "the time to do it in." Time is money, and getting paid is how artists get the time they need, but the only reason for copyright to extend as long as it currently does is so that non-creative people, mainly publishers and music labels, can extract maximum value from creative people's work with minimal effort.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:01PM (3 children)
It's quite straightforward: if the copy resembles your 1990 source code, it doesn't violate copyright. If it includes code and changes you made in 2004, it violates. You can't copyright the core logic - then we'd be talking about software patents, which is a whole different blazing dumpster-full of canned worms. The US legal system knows exactly how to deal with open-and-shut cases like that: Just wave a briefcase full of examples of copied code, refuse to show it to the court, declare bankruptcy and let your creditors pay your lawyers until it has dragged on for over a decade and turns out that you didn't own the copyright in the first case...
Far easier to deal with than this sort of entirely subjective thing [wikipedia.org] with literature. (TL:DNR - Sherlock the emotionless smackhead is public domain but if he cracks a smile it is still copyrighted) although after looking up the link I see it's recently been thrown out (presumably after the lawyers compared the serial numbers on their banknotes).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:08PM (2 children)
There should be no copyright on software at all, only NDAs and trade secrets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @10:10PM
Such an idiotic policy would eliminate open source software, so kindly die in the same fire as the software patent proponents. Source code is speech and should receive the same protections (no more and no less) than any other kind of creative expression.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2021, @03:02AM
Remember when software was authored and published?
It still is!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:03PM (5 children)
I think you are mistaken. You cannot take any of the works that entered public domain today, copy it and "rebrand" it with your name in place of the real author, and sell it. That would be pretty obvious plagiarism. No publisher is going to give you a contract, and few people are going to be ignorant enough to pay for your published work. You will quickly be exposed as a fraud, and will find yourself fighting a myriad of court cases because of that fraud.
As you have pointed out, you CAN make "derivative works" based on the source code.
I'm unsure of the rules regarding attribution for public domain works. That is, if you copied a lot of code from a creative commons work, you would have to attribute those portions of code to the original author(s). I strongly suspect that the same applies to public domain.
The author can no longer sue you for copyright infringement, but you're still wide open to other legal remedies if you try to sell stuff that isn't yours.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:31PM
Of course you can. Just that nobody is gonna pay you for it because it's in the public domain, so anyone can copy it and sell their copies. Look at how many different Webster's Dictionaries there are.
You can copy it and sell it under your name, but why not use Webster's name when you can do it for free?
Now if you add some original content, that can be copyrighted, but only that. Not all the content.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:31PM (3 children)
please google
"can you sell works in public domain"
and get back to me. I may be wrong, but literally everything I know on the subject, and every result of the google search says you absolutely can do this. plagiarism is not something that is illegal - it's something a university rule doesn't allow for its students.
As far as your part about code in public domain - yes, you can take it, use it, repackage it as your own, and sell it. All those nasty things are perfectly legal.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 02 2021, @07:45PM (2 children)
There's such a thing as "moral rights" in copyright law -- which is, roughtly speaking, the right of the author to be considered the author.
These rights are taken seriously almost everywhere in the world except the USA.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:50PM (1 child)
when you say almost everywhere, you probably mean places like France. because if you mean "everywhere in the world except the USA" - I've got some news for you. 100% of the companies stealing IP, repackaging it as their own, and selling it, are not operating in the USA.
we got enough problems with the current system to bitch about. let's not trivialize those problems by calling some kids fighting at walmart an act of terror, or a consensual drunken fuck rape, or the thing you said.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday January 03 2021, @03:11AM
I mean the countries following the international copyright treaties.
They recognize the inalienable right of the author to be considered the author.
Whether they actually enforce human rights at all is another matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:28PM (6 children)
"What you're saying is anyone can now take your source code, change the name and logo, and sell it as their product."
You seem to be confusing infringement with plagiarism. No one is saying that plagiarism is OK.
Also the ability to resell it could depend on being granted new protections on derivative works. Are you saying that derivative works shouldn't get new protections? What about all of the stuff that corporations have used from the public domain to create their works from? Are you saying all of their derivative works should be in the public domain? I may not be against that ;) (but I suspect you might be).
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:36PM
I am not saying a single thing of that. I am saying what I said. The legal system is what is currently saying plagiarism on a work in public domain is ok. Not a derivative work - someone taking your shit, putting their name on it, and selling it as theirs. So putting your work in public domain like the comment I replied to suggested, is a bad idea. Other people should be free to duplicate the result on their own, not have the author lose copyright over their work.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:37PM (4 children)
For example, you can claim you wrote the Bible. It's in the public domain. Just bob will believe you, and you can't copyright it. But you can copyright your own version of it, as your own work, and you don't need the permission of the original authors. Just look at how many different versions of the bible are out there.
Public domain means exactly that - no protection from anyone doing what they want with it. No requiring attention, permission, or authorization to make modifications.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @03:46PM (1 child)
Good points.
Perhaps the law should specify that, under certain conditions (...?) within a given time attribution should be required for public domain works? This can be tricky though as, technically, the English I am writing this with is a product of public domain letters and words so everything is technically a derivative work of something.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:50PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @08:48PM (1 child)
"Just look at how many different versions of the bible are out there."
Well there are many different translations. Some of the English translations are/were under copyright even though the original Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic texts are not. Those that make English translations are not claiming that they are the sources of the original text.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 02 2021, @08:57PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:26PM (1 child)
Your updated UI would be under a newer copyright while only the old unmodified version would be in the public domain. If you've been selling it since 1990, can you honestly say that you haven't been paid for the work? As for your competitor, good luck to them selling it either, because your customers can share the old version among themselves for free. Because it's been paid for. If you want to be paid again then you either need to update the software with features people are willing to pay for or write something new.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:40PM
>Because it's been paid for
by whom and to who? by someone who took your software, called it theirs, and sold it.
but I understand your point completely, and completely disagree with it. my software, has not been paid for, to me. and because I wrote the source code, it is mine till I die, and another person or company has no right to take it and make it their own. I don't need to do anything to it if I don't want to. You are free to duplicate it on your own and make a 100% identical clone.
This also means someone can take that core logic, which in a huge amount of software hasn't changed in 50 years, and write a new UI to in in a weekend, and sell it as a product.
I know you disagree. Thankfully, for me and all the developers out there, you didn't write the laws, and someone like me did.