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Comment by gweinberg | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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>

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