For the 3rd year in a row, new works will enter the public domain in the United States. Works created in 1925 or earlier are now in the public domain!
Copyrighted works entering the public domain were put on hold by the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, aka the the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, which extended the term of copyright from the life of the author + 50 years to life of the author + 70 years. When the term of copyright was 28 years with a 28 year renewal, 85% of copyrighted works were not renewed since the profit from the work wasn’t higher than the cost of renewal. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain notes:
"A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are “orphan works,” where the copyright owner cannot be found at all."
As a result, we have lost 20 years worth of films, news reels and documentaries because many of them have simply rotted away as the copyright holders didn’t have a financial incentive to digitize them and archivists couldn’t do so while the works were under copyright.
Though Mickey Mouse is still in Disney lockdown until 2024, here is a selection of what is entering the public domain. Duke University Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a summary of the new works we can enjoy free of copyright. We provided links to any of the works we found at The Internet Archive, where we expect more works now in the public domain to appear.
Films
- Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman
- The Merry Widow
- Stella Dallas
- Buster Keaton’s Go West
- His People
- Lovers in Quarantine
Musical Compositions (You are free to perform them yourself!)
- Works by Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues,” including Dixie Flyer Blues, Tired of Voting Blues, and Telephone Blues
- Works by Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” including Army Camp Harmony Blues (with Hooks Tilford) and Shave ’Em Dry (with William Jackson)
- Works by Lovie Austin, including Back Biting Woman’s Blues, Southern Woman’s Blues, and Tennessee Blues
- Works by Sippie Wallace, including Can Anybody Take Sweet Mama’s Place (with Clarence Williams)
- Works by Duke Ellington, including Jig Walk and With You (both with Joseph “Jo” Trent)
- Works by ‘Fats’ Waller, including Anybody Here Want To Try My Cabbage (with Andrea “Andy” Razaf), Ball and Chain Blues (with Andrea “Andy” Razaf), and Campmeetin’ StompWorks by ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton, including Shreveport Stomps and Milenberg Joys (with Paul Mares, Walter Melrose, & Leon Roppolo)
- Always, by Irving Berlin
- Sweet Georgia Brown, by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard & Kenneth Casey
- Looking for a Boy, by George & Ira Gershwin (from the musical Tip-Toes)
- Works by W.C. Handy, including Friendless Blues (with Mercedes Gilbert), Bright Star of Hope (with Lillian A. Thorsten), and When the Black Man Has a Nation of His Own (with J.M. Miller)
- Works by Sidney Bechet, including Waltz of Love (with Spencer Williams), Naggin’ at Me (with Rousseau Simmons), and Dreams of To-morrow (with Rousseau Simmons)
- Works by Fletcher Henderson, including Screaming the Blues (with Fay Barnes)
Books
- Alain Locke, The New Negro (collecting works from writers including W.E.B. du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond)
- Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time
- Franz Kafka, The Trial (in German)
- Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
- John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer
- Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
- Agatha Christie, The Secret of Chimneys
- Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves
- W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
- Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs
- Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction
For the 3rd year in a row, new works will enter the public domain in the United States. Works created in 1925 or earlier are now in the public domain!
Copyrighted works entering the public domain were put on hold by the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, aka the the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, which extended the term of copyright from the life of the author + 50 years to life of the author + 70 years. When the term of copyright was 28 years with a 28 year renewal, 85% of copyrighted works were not renewed since the profit from the work wasn’t higher than the cost of renewal. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain notes:
"A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are “orphan works,” where the copyright owner cannot be found at all."As a result, we have lost 20 years worth of films, news reels and documentaries because many of them have simply rotted away as the copyright holders didn’t have a financial incentive to digitize them and archivists couldn’t do so while the works were under copyright.
Though Mickey Mouse is still in Disney lockdown until 2024, here is a selection of what is entering the public domain. Duke University Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a summary of the new works we can enjoy free of copyright. We provided links to any of the works we found at The Internet Archive, where we expect more works now in the public domain to appear.
Films
Musical Compositions (You are free to perform them yourself!)
Books