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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 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