2024's public domain is a banger | Hacker News Reader

2024's public domain is a banger

pluralistic.net

128 pointsmatijao40 comments

This is the third "happy public domain day" post I've seen here, and they've all been remarkably sparse when it comes to actually listing what comes into the public domain. Maybe a dozen or so books, I know they can't list everything but I'd like to see at least a few hundred.

I think it's because the list just isn't all that interesting… are you as hyped about all the new works based on Virginia Wolfe's Orlando as I am?

Academically, it's interesting to think over the media that would already be in public domain had Sonny Bono and Clinton not sold us out… basically everything through World War II, and (since all anyone brings up is Steamboat Willie) all the big foundational Disney movies from Snow White through Bambi and Dumbo. Makes one wonder if this fad for "live-action remakes" isn't connected…

If no one on the entire internet cares enough to compile a list enumerating at least a single percentage fraction of such works, then it suggest the news itself is not that important to any actual, tangible, individual.

Things don't have to be momentous to have a measurable impact in the long term. Unwinding intangible property rights has tremendous value for the public, and we should get it sooner.

Which I think -- in my personal opinion -- is strong evidence that copyright terms are too long.

We (the demos) are supposed to give people a time-limited monopoly in return for them ultimately enriching the public domain. If the works entering the public domain are spent then we need to adjust the deal until it heavily benefits the pubic domain -- the works should still be culturally relevant, so they should be works that are at most [let's say] 30 years old where a parent could share the cultural experiences of works from their own youth with a child.

It was a good book and there's already a pretty solid film adaptation. I'm not sure how much more we can do with Orlando. That being said, it's a great story to come back to relevance in 2024.

And, as the article says, all the media that would still exist if copying it wasn't prohibited.

In a way that means the copyright lobbyists have won. You don't find the list interesting now, but 14+14 years after 1928 you would have. A lot of it would still be fresh in our collective minds. Now in 2024, most of it is dead to us.

What about 14+14 years ago (1996)... can you think of any music/movies from the mid-90s or before that would be interesting to remix? I sure can. But very few people are still going to care in 1996+95 = the year 2091.

It's at least partially dead to us because of the ex post facto copyright extensions, no?

But wasn't that the point? While any interest remained, the copyright holders wanted to milk every last drop of money to be paid for it.

Note, copyright holders often don't have your best interest in mind (like cultural enrichment or fun), or the original author's interest (like posthumous fame). They manage a property, an immutable and depreciating one.

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/to1949.html#y1928

> fun fact: most books published in the US before 1964 are in the public domain

<https://www.crummy.com/2019/07/22/0>

Submitted to HN 2019 August 02. 62 comments. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20591071>

Related ongoing thread:

Happy Public Domain Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833208

Also:

Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38830264 - Jan 2024 (162 comments)

January 1, 2024 is Public Domain Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38823973 - Dec 2023 (15 comments)

Copyright for original Mickey Mouse persona to run out 1 January 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38799484 - Dec 2023 (10 comments)

Mickey Mouse to Enter Public Domain: "It's Finally Happening'" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38737164 - Dec 2023 (7 comments)

Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38678021 - Dec 2023 (208 comments)

Public Domain Day 2024 Is Coming: Here's What to Know - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586978 - Dec 2023 (6 comments)

The Mickey Mouse Copyright Runs Out in 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36559037 - July 2023 (64 comments)

Here's a serious question; public domain is different for each country. How do you technically restrict people from non-US countries from accessing the content that is legal to remix in the US? Is it acceptable to just ask them to confirm they are US citizens and then keep a cookie with that acceptance?

For example, in one of the threads on Gutenberg, a German user complains they cannot access the site. Just ip blocking? Is that sufficient?

Man, I love Corey Doctorow's writing. So fun.

I think the time limit should be low for blockbusters and anything over some threshold of total sales. The extensions should only be for stories that haven't grossed $5 million of something, but there should be a roof for how long it's covered against private copying. Maybe a larger amount but some lower tier artist should get a longer duration but the big studios and big publishers shouldn't be able to keep steamboat Willie locked up so long. It shows how crazy our society is, big pharma advances get 17 to maybe 20 years from filing, but Mickey Mouse, a similar age to penicillin was out of patent in the mid 1950s.

Reading a Doctorow article like this, I get the sense that he thinks it would be a swell idea to force everyone by law to surrender all private property to the benevolent care of the state.

His use of the word “comrade” does nothing to alleviate this impression, either.

What can you (and would want to) do with Mickey Mouse that you couldn't do yesterday?

Make a horror game where Mickey Mouse is hunting you?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2635640/Infestation_88/

OK, so someone somewhere had thought of this. Would _you_ be interested in it?

Anything you want! As long as it can't confuse consumers into thinking it came from Disney. And it has to be based on the 1938 version.

It'll be interesting to see the first lawsuits over this, because there's a lot of grey area!

But the question is what do you want, not what I want.

I wonder if YouTube has a department that keeps track of what is coming into the public domain in which country at what date. Or will their systems be out of date and still flag copyright violations on this content?

Anecdotal evidence is they are still flagging this content. https://x.com/quijanophd/status/1741897926924726449?s=46&t=c...

YouTube already doesn't validate copyright claims are valid - the DMCA makes even trying legally perilous, and YouTube's motivation to keep on good terms with the publishers goes even further. So in that regard, this changes nothing.

Considering the abuse of the automated dmca system, I imagine YouTube will continue to side with the publishers for a long while, even in cases of legitimate use. There’s way less liability in false positives than false negatives for them.

They've got no incentive to prioritize free use over protecting corporate interests. And evidence shows this holds in practice, when it's not necessary for them to. Welcome to "regulation by free market" (in other words, regulation by incumbent private interests)

Which means governments need to incentivise such priorities. Find a government that promotes their citizens above neoptistic and/or commercial interests and I'm sure they'll get right on to it ...

In my view that is not something a government does

And I don't believe that progress happens by us imagining a rule toward a more perfect society and then government following to enact it

Quite a few claims on the internet that they're flagging content still.

Probably not. Youtubers can get copyright strikes for playing original interpretations of Bach or any other classical music that has been in the public domain for centuries.

One example on top of my head comes from TwoSetViolin commenting on this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsMMG0EQoyI In their case, the issue was fixed, but I wonder if smaller channels get the same "benefit" or a human reviewer.

2024's public domain is a mouse

Imagine a world where people can freely access learning materials. Sure they can do it now through „illegal“ channels but many don’t and that is negatively impacting all of humanity.

Question: Even books written today will be free for all in your ideal world?

all forms of copying are morally permissible (without commercial use), because some forms of copying are permissible and there is not a logical distinction between various forms of copying.

1. I disagree. Who says what is morally permissible or not? Why shouldn’t authors keep the fruits of their labor?

2. Why did morality even come here?

People would also put less time and effort into creating learning materials. If someone wants to create freely accessible learning materials, they can do so today. And some do!

I think there would still be more than enough learning materials created to learn anything you can imagine.

Education is proven to be one of the thing that impacts your life most positively if available.

Yet we gate education behind money and privilege and let publishers hold the public hostage for profit.

Why? Is it worth it in your opinion?

There are two forces at work. The existence of copyright on the one hand means that the effort of creating learning materials is split between freely available and not freely available materials. On the other hand, it creates more (financial) incentives to create learning materials. Maybe removing copyright would result in more learning materials to be freely available (or maybe not), but at the same time it may also mean that less high-quality learning materials will be produced (due to the lack of financial incentives). It’s not clear-cut in my opinion. In addition, I believe that one should have the right to monetize good material that took a lot of effort to create, without being immediately plagiarized by the rest of the world.

That is a fair analysis, and I generally agree.

But a copyright reform wouldn’t mean there is no way at all for you to monetise your great quality learning materials.

In my ideal world it would mean you can monetise them for a reasonable time and after that time they become a public good. We could also come up with better monetisation strategies for such materials.

But what really grinds my gears for example now my government pays private companies/publishers to produce learning materials which are then sold again to the schools - why are these materials paid for with public money aka taxes not freely available for everyone? I do agree private people should be able to monetise their work but this should never extend to materials that are paid for with taxes. Those should always be public goods. And I can see no other reason than greed and corruption why that is not the case. I am sure there are other reasons that I am missing since I’m not that deep in the field - but then again I just want everyone to be able to access the wealth of information easily that I (as someone fairly familiar with web technology) can access freely in multiple ways. As long as that is not the case I will stubbornly keep clamouring for copyright reform, happy to hear other ways to achieve that goal though.

Looks like you have two ideal worlds:

1. One with all content free (the original comment)

2. One with “reasonable” monetization (this comment and current situation in the real world)

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