All Copyrighted Works First Published In the US In 1923 Will Enter Public Domain On January 1st (smithsonianmag.com)

"At midnight on New Year's Eve, all works first published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain," reports Smithsonian Magazine. "It has been 21 years since the last mass expiration of copyright in the U.S.

"After January 1, any record label can issue a dubstep version of the 1923 hit 'Yes! We Have No Bananas,' any middle school can produce Theodore Pratt's stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and any historian can publish Winston Churchill's The World Crisis with her own extensive annotations." From the report: "The public domain has been frozen in time for 20 years, and we're reaching the 20-year thaw," says Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. The release is unprecedented, and its impact on culture and creativity could be huge. We have never seen such a mass entry into the public domain in the digital age. The last one -- in 1998, when 1922 slipped its copyright bond -- predated Google. "We have shortchanged a generation," said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. "The 20th century is largely missing from the internet."

We can blame Mickey Mouse for the long wait. In 1998, Disney was one of the loudest in a choir of corporate voices advocating for longer copyright protections. At the time, all works published before January 1, 1978, were entitled to copyright protection for 75 years; all author's works published on or after that date were under copyright for the lifetime of the creator, plus 50 years. Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse's first appearance on screen, in 1928, was set to enter the public domain in 2004. At the urging of Disney and others, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, named for the late singer, songwriter and California representative, adding 20 years to the copyright term. Mickey would be protected until 2024 -- and no copyrighted work would enter the public domain again until 2019, creating a bizarre 20-year hiatus between the release of works from 1922 and those from 1923.

Comments

There's still time

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still time to pass another extension. All the usual delays of politics go *poof* when it comes to expiring copyright - usually presented as a suddenly appearing crisis that needs to be averted.

Re:There's still time

[Joce640k]

Nothing by Disney=no extension this year.

Re:There's still time

[dwywit]

That's the nub of it. Wait and watch for lobbying from the mouse. It'll start a year or two, maybe even an election cycle before another of the mouse's properties look like coming up for PD. Give 'em credit, they take the long view - and they've got the deep pockets needed to advance a lobbying campaign over decades, or longer.

2024 for Steamboat Willie?

[kurkosdr]

Wouldn't be surprised if, by 2023, the copyright code gets magically extended for another 20 years and Steamboat Willie "coincidentally" remains copyrighted for another 20 years. This is the problem with loaded language. Extensive use of the term "intellectual property" by companies like Disney and pro-Disney politicians (Mickey Mouse politicians) to refer to their copyrights has resulted in the public thinking copyrights are property, and, if a house or a car doesn't become public property after 90 years or whatever why should "intellectual property"? Vote fewer Mickey Mouse politicians in power I guess.

Re:2024 for Steamboat Willie?

[hjf]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
I have no problem with Disney's most popular characters NOT going into public domain. Disney actively exploits its brand. Good for them. They've kept Mickey Mouse alive for 90 years. They're not patent trolls sitting on copyrighted or patented stuff with the only objective of suing everyone who uses their brand or patent.

How does the world benefit from Mickey Mouse going into public domain? In no way. The world doesn't become a better place. If anything, all that happens is that Disney loses licensing money. Yes, disney IS an evil corporation, but this isn't the point here.

On the other hand, "abandonware", such as older games, SHOULD go into public domain because no one is exploiting them. If no one cares about them, why not release them? That's a good example of stuff going into public domain.

If the person or company who owns the copyright uses it, gives work to other people, and isn't being a dick about suing everyone for patent troll reasons, why take it away from them?

Re:2024 for Steamboat Willie?

[ledow]

But my property is no longer my property upon my death.

If I manage to own something for 95 years and I'm still around to claim it, then it should be mine. If Walt was still alive (or whoever actually drew those characters) you could argue that their property still being their property for the length of their lives would be sensible.

But companies don't die. Nintendo is how old? 129 years? There are banks and industries WAY older than that. It's ridiculous to assign "intellectual" property to an entity that has no intellect of its own.

It's about corporations being seen as entities which "must" exist and continue to own everything they've ever owned, into perpetuity. That's not what copyrights or patents were made for. Trademarks, you could argue, that suits. But not the other two.

However, you can be damn sure that if I died tomorrow, all of my property isn't mine, most doesn't get passed down to kids, and some of it disappears entirely (e.g. all my "intellectual" property rights mean naught once I'm dead and I can't pass my copyright licences to, say, software, onto my estate).

The question that needs to be asked legally is: Do you want a corporation to be able to exclusively own an idea for as long as it exists, even if it exists only to own that idea?

I can't see how that is for the public benefit in any way, shape or form, even if you consider taxing that idea into oblivion (it's then still people who weren't even born when the idea was "invented" that have to pay for it).

Re:2024 for Steamboat Willie?

[CastrTroy]

The important thing to remember is that Disney already has a trademark on Mickey, and that will never expire. So it still stops people from producing new works with Mickey in them even if Steamboat Willie goes into the public domain. Haivng Steamboat Willie in the public domain only allows us to make copies of the original without getting autorization from Disney.

Re:2024 for Steamboat Willie?

[Dragonslicer]

The problem is who defines what's abandoned?

Simple, just charge the copyright owner some amount of money every year (after a reasonable initial period; the original period of 28 years seems to be pretty well received) to keep the work protected. Once they stop paying, the work becomes public domain.

1923

[Opportunist]

Does anyone need any confirmation that this is absolutely ridiculous? The currently oldest living person is Kane Tanaka from Japan. Born 1903. Now assuming she was a composer and already active before she was 20 years old, we might actually have someone alive whose works drop into PD.

1923 was 95 years ago. We're talking about 4 generations of people reaping the rewards of something their great-grandfather did. Try to find me one other profession where you can milk the exploits of someone you probably never even met because he died long before you were born.

Re:1923

[SqueakyMouse]

Try to find me one other profession where you can milk the exploits of someone you probably never even met because he died long before you were born.

Monarch/Emperor?

Re: 1923

[Opportunist]

Yes, that's even more ridiculous. If you want to know just HOW ridiculous, realize that no Beatles song will enter PD before 2068, 100 years after pretty much all of them were written, and even that only if McCartney and Starr bite the dust in the next couple days.

Re:1923

[Opportunist]

Maybe that's why it's called royalties...

Re:1923

[91degrees]

Quite. The intent according to the constitution is:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

While a 5 year copyright term would cover this for a lot of works, I'm guess people such as stock photograph producers and composers of background and incidental music probably rely on a couple of decades of re-use before they see a reasonable return, and those are the people we should probably be protecting.

Hardly anybody is making money from works created 75 years ago, or even the 56 years of the 1909 act. Even those that were created more than 28 years ago have made more than their original cost back if they're still in print. Most works from before 1990 are not still in print. Rather than encourage publication, copyright makes it near impossible to obtain anything created between 1923 and 1990 without the effort to either find a used copy, or go through the considerable expense of tracking down the copyright holder, and negotiating for a copy.

Re:1923

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Farmers can still farm the land their grand pa made farmable. Ships my grandfather build still sail the sees and I get revenue from the passengers. The house my grandpa build I still can rent out.

Big difference here is that the physical asset your grandpappy had would likely have been taxed (via property taxes, etc.) for the past few decades, and some active maintenance would have been required to keep the asset usable.

Meanwhile, intellectual property remains non-taxed (wouldn't it be great to assess and tax Disney's use of the Mouse) and can park for free for years.

Fix the difference (i.e., tax old IP) and I'll be happy.

Re:1923

[dryeo]

The original copyright law was 14 years with the possibility of a 14 year extension if you made the effort along with a 35 year grandfather clause with the reasoning that it was to promote learning. The Americans copied that into their Constitution with limited time and for the advancement off the arts and sciences, which pretty well covered learning at the time and the first American law was also 14+14.
The real problem was that the publishers of the day, the stationers, managed to come up with this protecting the artist argument when it was always about protecting the publishers, who usually paid a pittance to the artist for unlimited rights.

Ridiculous

[LowTechSwede]

The current take on Copyright, globally and especially in US is ridiculous. The origin of Copyright is to protect original typesetters from the fact that was much easier to copy an already typeset and printed work than to do an original typeset based on a handwritten manuscript. The purpose was to ensure that books got printed. Obviously, this no longer applies. In order to maximize public good, copyright may still have a place, but then we need to ask the question: "What time horizon of revenue is necessary to make an artist find it worthwhile to create a new work of art?" The answer is of course not lifetime + 95 years or something similarly stupid. In the day of immediate global distribution, no cost for duplication and very fast changes in what's popular, the argument can be made for 1 year, 5 years or possibly 10 years. Anything longer than that is not for maximizing public good, but for enriching publishing houses. It is not a self evident right that you and all your descendants for a hundred years can live of a revenue stream from some work you did a very long time ago. It's time for a change.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up! Intellectual property laws in their current form aren't for the public good, they are plain and simple rent seeking allowances. They discourage creativity and are in practice draconian. These laws, along with the abomination that is patent law, stifle innovation and keep players out of markets. Only the big boys with their lawyers get to play... and beat everyone else over the head with a large stick while collecting rent -- for ninety-five years!

Re:Ridiculous

[treymichaelcook]

Patent laws are actually pretty reasonable, at least length-wise: 20 years, which is long enough to payoff off various high R&D cost inventions, like new pharmaceuticals, while still allowing people to see the patent go public domain within a fraction of the typical human lifespan. I think that setting copyright at the same 20 years would be a good idea.

Re:Ridiculous

[Jason Levine]

The original copyright term, in the US at least, was 14 years. After that, you could renew it for another 14 years. I think that's plenty of time. I published a book two years ago. If I live until I'm 90 (and there are no more copyright extensions), then my novel will fall out of copyright in the year 2135. If my youngest son has a child when he's 30, this grandson of mine will be 100 by the time my novel's copyright expires. I don't think my great-great-grandkids need to profit off a book that I wrote. Having the copyright expire in 2030 (2044 if I renew) is enough.

Copyright should last as long at Patents.

[treymichaelcook]

I think that copyright length should be rolled back to the same length as patents, 20 years. It just seems strange to me that cheesy romance novels & generic action movies get longer amounts of protection than life saving drugs, new battery chemistries, or improved engines. 20 years should be plenty for any book, movie, or game to recoup its development cost, but would allow adults to take the media of their youth and put their owns spins on it, coming up with all sorts of interesting things. Imagine if genuine Star Wars fan could have come up with their own set of prequels & sequels to the original series. I am pretty sure at least one group would have given us a better version that what Lucas and later Disney came up with.
Another thing that should be looked to is coming with some sort of copyright registry; with most valuable property like real estate, automobiles, boats, and even IP like patents & trademarks, there is a pretty easy way to find out who owns what. Copyright doesn't have that, which leads to works being unable to be used since no one knows who owns it. Plus, if IP holders want the government to protect their property, well, they should maybe be taxed on it, with say an assessed tax on the estimated value of the copyright, similar to how property is taxed today. Now, obviously, given the volume of works created, maybe have the tax kick in at values of more than say, $1 million, since trying to tax every little song or short story would be a bookkeeping nightmare.

Re: Copyright should last as long at Patents.

[treymichaelcook]

Drug companies spend hundreds of millions to develop a single new drug, and get it approved for sale. Yet they only get 20 years to sell it before any schmuck with a FDA certified production facility can take the patent info an make their own version that gets sold for $4 a month at Walmart. Why should your book get more protection than life-saving medications? The same is true for all sorts of inventions that have heavy R&D cost. Books, on the other hand can written on even the cheapest computers available for sale, and are something that usually only takes one person to write.

I'm with the founding fathers

[cascadingstylesheet]

I'm with the founding fathers on this ... it should be 7 years, extendable to 14 max.

Stuff from 2004 should be entering public domain, not from 1923. (Though I'll grant you, the stuff from 1923 is probably better.)

That's not how copyright is supposed to work

[rsilvergun]

the deal is that the government puts it's resources behind protecting your works (keep in mind, your tax dollars are paying for the courts Disney uses to enforce their copyright; more so if you consider how Disney dodges taxes like all major corps). In exchange for that your works eventually become public domain. It was a social contract, and they broke it by extending their benefits indefinitely.

Disney should not have eternal protection

[sjbe]

I have no problem with Disney's most popular characters NOT going into public domain.

Really? You should. Copyright should not be some eternal thing. They should have to keep inventing new works instead of milking work done by people who have been dead and buried for decades.

Disney actively exploits its brand.

So what? Disney has made a killing off of taking public domain works and making proprietary versions of them. Should work the other way around too. They've had 90 years to do something interesting/useful/valuable with it. Time to let others work on it.

How does the world benefit from Mickey Mouse going into public domain? In no way.

Completely wrong. Disney itself is a perfect example of what could happen. They take public domain works (pretty much 90% of their classic animated movies) and do interesting renditions of them that have huge economic and cultural value. Lots of creative works that you cannot even envision could be brought to life that cannot now. Disney's had a good run but if someone has an interesting take on their oldest work then they should be able to make a go of it. Disney shouldn't enjoy some special status not available to anyone else and the ENTIRE point of copyright and patents is that they provide TEMPORARY protection.

Re:Disney should not have eternal protection

[JesseMcDonald]

While I agree that copyrights should not be eternal, your justification for why it's wrong is flawed and a slippery slope unless you think we should get rid of inheritances all together.

Inheritance isn't even close to the same thing. As a scarce resource, for an inheritance to bring you any benefit you have to choose to either spend it or invest it. To the extent that you spend it, it isn't eternal—you're using it up. On the other hand, if you invest it then any returns you receive are the product of that investment, which is your own new contribution. Just stuffing your inheritance in a mattress and sitting on it won't do you any good in the current inflationary economy, despite the fact that even that would benefit others indirectly since you are choosing not to bid up prices for goods they want to buy.

Copyright by contrast isn't a scarce material good and can't be "used up" no matter how many copies are made. The copyright holder's revenue is derived purely from artificial restrictions which copyright law places on others to prevent them from providing themselves with new copies of existing works, which they could otherwise do on their own without any cost to the creator or copyright holder.

If a creator wants to save what they've earned from their labor of creating and publishing new works and eventually give those savings as a gift to their children (or anyone else), there is no problem with that. Anyone who receives income is free to make that choice. The issue here is not the ongoing benefit to copyright holders but rather the ongoing burden which copyright imposes on the rest of society.

Frankly, if you're going to attack people for copying something you created then I believe we'd all be better off if you just kept it to yourself, or at least only shared it with people who explicitly opted in to your terms (with recourse limited to those who actually agreed to the terms if they should happen to be broken, as with any other contract). The concept that you would be permitted to impose restrictions on everyone else through a unilateral act of publication is insane.

Re:Exploration and colonization

[CrimsonAvenger]

Exploration and colonization. Descendants of Europeans are still milking the exploits of the European explorers who explored North and South America and swindled land from Native American nations.

We didn't "swindle" land from the Native Americans. We (occasionally) bought land from the First Immigrants (or Second, depending on how accurate that current scientific views vis a vis the various immigration waves to the New World are), or beat the crap out of them and took it.

Pretty much the same way the various inhabitants of every other part of the world did, back in the day.

Or is it okay if your ancestors did it 1000+ years ago, and only bad when they did it 500- years ago?