Millions of Books Are Secretly in the Public Domain
vice.com
vice.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20591071
(Although this one is a proper news article, and that was a blog post.)
On Jan. 1, 2019, all books, movies, and music published in 1923 entered the public domain. It was the first time since the 1990s that anything new entered the public domain, because Congress had extended the length of copyright protection.
If, as the article says, about 80 percent of books published between 1923 and 1964 are also in the public domain, then it's as if 40 years of creative works just came crashing through like a tidal wave to wipe out that 20-year draught!
And perhaps even more important than free access to the works themselves is the ability to adapt and transform these works without restriction. Think about all of the characters from those books that can now become the stars of new stories!
One thing worth pointing out, however, is that the 80 percent of books that did not have their copyright terms renewed are likely to be books that were not commercially successful, so their authors or designees had no strong financial interest in keeping the copyright protected. So don't expect to find many of the most famous works published during this period in the list. Nevertheless, I would not be surprised if there are some true gems that, for whatever reason, did not have their copyright terms renewed, and I'm excited to try to find them!
One of the good things about the 1976 copyright reform is that the copyright was simplified so that figuring out the copyright status merely requires you to know the death date of the author instead of trying to track down if various procedures were formally followed (I'd have preferred that it be a fixed term to make it even simpler, but it's still a simplification). To give you an idea of how complicated the older status can be, the copyright flowcharts that you see are basically a manifestation of "was this work copyrighted as of the copyright act taking effect?" (e.g., https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain). Eventually, when the copyright clock ticks down on the intermediate period (and assuming no other copyright acts get passed to retroactively lengthen those periods), the determination will boil down to "death of author plus 70 years, or 95 years from publishing, or 120 years from creation."
That's a pretty big merely!
I can't tell you whether some obscure book is PD just by looking at the book. At worst you're basically working out when and if someone died just based on their name. Quick is Joe Blogs alive or dead?
Then there's the question of who the author is. I believe theres been a court case over Anne Franks diaries and whether her father was an author.
Edit: Maybe not a court case https://solargeneral.org/anne-frank-diary-co-authored-by-her...
In the US, the law essentially requires that copyright owners need to explicitly inform the Copyright Office of the author's death date, or at least of evidence that the author was alive at a given point of time. Without that evidence, there is a complete defense that the 95/120 term is in effect. (See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/302).
First time that american books entered the american public domain. Other countries use different copyright lengths. Some american books entered public domain in those countries, even while they remain locked down in their home country (ie Gone with the Wind).
And if one really wants to pick nits, there is actually a very steady flow of non-book things. Anything not subject to copyright/patent/trademark goes strait to public domain. A good example would be the constant stream of space-related stuff from nasa.
One can debate the moral and philosophical issues of property rights until the cows come home, but in the case of copyrights, the legal construct is unambiguously not intended exclusively to protect natural rights or incomes for creators, but instead "To promote the progress of science and useful arts".
The real challenge is that there's no inherent bright line or Schelling focus[0] that defines where that balance lies, between fair compensation to creators, and unlocking that artificial monopoly for We The People. Death of the author comes closest, but that could also leave families stranded after an untimely passing of a creative breadwinner. Death of the author + 18-25 (protecting income for dependents), might be the least worst. I'd be interested in hearing arguments for other durations; I don't see an obvious answer.
(It's also curious that copyrights use the language of rights, which are typically thought to be inalienable, yet are transferrable as economic assets in ways that most other rights are not. Not saying that's good or bad, just noteworthy.)
You're both correct, FWIW.
The bright line has been researched by economists, based on present-value theory, and at time of publication there's little reason for duration to exceed the 14-28 years under original US copyright law.
The problem is for popular works in the catalogue, a minuscule fraction of the total, for which copyright perpetuities are highly lucrative. As well as the general publishing industry incentive for creating a vast and potentially legally catastrophic level of FUD around virtually all stale works, regardless of actual copyright status.
As far as I understand it, the word “right” used to simply mean permission granted from some higher authority— “The duke has granted me the right to hunt in his forest”. The idea of inalienable rights came about much later (the Enlightenment?), as permissions granted from some authority higher than all earthly governments.
The easy hack is obviously to add the average human lifespan on top of the date of death.
In reality every copyrighted work should be dated and then each work can expire individually after a reasonable number of years, lets say 14 years with periodic renewals (in exchange for money).
One example from the Secretly Public Domain list (https://botsin.space/@SecretlyPublicDomain): "The course of Europe since Waterloo [by] Walter Phelps Hall [and] William Stearns Davis." (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008232465) The catalog page only allows search
"This item is not available online ( Limited - search only) due to copyright restrictions.
"You can try to find this item in a library or search in this text to find the frequency and page number of specific words and phrases. This can be especially useful to help you decide if the book is worth buying, checking out from a library, etc." (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b740539)
Even things which are currently acknowledged to be in the public domain are not downloadable without a "partner login" (although they can be viewed): https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031485447&vi...
So this is great news and would be better if there were a usable interface to the copyright registration information, it doesn't materially improve the situation.
I strongly suspect that next decade will see Mickey Mouse fall into the public domain.
Additionally, Mickey is also trademarked, which lasts forever as long as it is used commercially by the owner. So the mouse's likeness is not likely to be public domain as long as the Disney company exists and continues to use it.
If that happens, it’ll be interesting to watch; where will the courts draw the line between legitimately using the public-domain films and confusing consumers by using Disney’s trademark which is embedded in that film?
As an author, I think copyright should expire upon the death of the author(s). But then, I'm also generally opposed to large inheritances, I think they only serve aristocracy.
I wonder if we'll start seeing an explosion of film or TV series based on newly-free IP.
I am fully aware that demand from on demand services has created somewhat of a golden age of series television. It's still limited by funding, not ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateral_copyright_agreements...