Catch Pirate News tonight at 7:30pm Eastern where we will talk about Public Domain Day and all of the latest news of interest to Pirates.
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.
Another Public Domain Day has arrived and we can now enjoy works created in 1927 free of the shackles of copyright! Early Mickey Mouse is still in Disney lockdown until next year, but we have a selection of what has entered 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 some works we found at The Internet Archive, where we expect more works now in the public domain to appear.
Catch Pirate News tonight at 7:30pm Eastern where we will talk about Public Domain Day and all of the latest news of interest to Pirates.
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.
Here is a selection of works available this year as well as links to copies of some of them from The Internet Archive. Many thanks to the Duke University Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
Books
Musical Compositions (You are free to perform them yourself!)
Films