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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.
"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.
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.
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.
Maybe that's why it's called royalties...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.)
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism