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posted by requerdanos on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the free-the-mouse dept.

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 Gatsby

This 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


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  • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:50PM (1 child)

    by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:50PM (#1094056)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday January 03 2021, @03:11AM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 03 2021, @03:11AM (#1094143) Homepage Journal

    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.