5 ms·

Happy Public Domain Day 2026

430 points by apetresc 10mo ago

marc_abonce 10mo ago
How does copyright work with recorded music? The article mentions that Charlie (Bird) Parker's music is now public domain in most of the world (life + 70 years), but most of his records are collaborations with other artists like Dizzy Gillespie who died much later, less than 50 years ago. I also wonder if that even matters if the records are owned by corporations. In those cases, how would I know if a record is public domain or not?
- ronsor 10mo ago
  There's a copyright for the music itself, but then each recording has its own copyright. Fun, isn't it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_copyright_symbol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_copyright_symb...
  - smegger001 10mo ago
    Sort of like how the movie Charade staring Carry Grant and Audrey Hepburn is public domain (due to failure to file back when that was required in the 1970's) but the soundtrack is not. So the music is in the pubic domain only when played in the movie but played separately the music is still protected.
    - golem14 10mo ago
      That is a nice movie, BTW.
- dexterdog 10mo ago
  You don't. It's all nonsense so unless you are planning on doing something official with the material just pirate it. Copyright went far beyond lunacy decades ago and should be ignored if possible.
  - Guestmodinfo 10mo ago
    I wonder why should Tesla , who wanted to give us free electricity lost all his patents (time ran out in those times) while he was still living. And these rent seeking entities get to keep their copyrights for far too long. Are they more important than Nikola Tesla? Someone would retort that patent is not same as copyright. But really dude that's all just made up stuff by politicians and corporations. In the end Tesla died pennyless and these corporations and entities get to hoard all the human creativity till what it looks like an eternity for my meagre life span.
    - arlcode 10mo ago
      Patents can hold up economic development of certain industries much more than copyright. Which can have huge implications if they are on fundamentals. For example commercial 3D printing (using FDM) was likely significantly stalled until the relevant patent expired. Culture is of course important but there can always be new successful Alternatives.
    - TheDong 10mo ago
      As a society, modern humanity has decided that capitalism is more important than free electricity, even if it saves lives. We have enough electricity that everyone in the USA could have a generous free allowance. We've decided it's better to charge for electricity, and if an AI company can pay for it to train models, but someone freezing to death in their home cannot pay for it, that capital is a signal that the data-center should get the electricity, not the dying individual. This isn't a matter of copyright, this is a matter of how we structure society.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
  - flomo 10mo ago
    This is a tech forum, you don't need to act smart because you know piracy exists. It is an interesting question.
- atmavatar 10mo ago
  The records themselves are likely still copyrighted due to the collaborations, but you are free to record your own performance of the songs on said records.
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
Related: What will enter the public domain in 2026? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112
- echelon 10mo ago
  I really like this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118808 > I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? I've always been a fan of this, but here's a great detraction: > I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had middling success. It was only after 2011 that the series exploded in popularity. Good Omens main peak was ~15 years after release. Hell, some books like Handmaiden's Tale were published in 1985 but only reached their peak in 2010. IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent. This is a very solid point. Works sometimes only become popular decades after their initial release. Perhaps a way to protect individual artists would be to limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity. The more you aggregate or hold on to, the steeper the cost to maintain the copyright. I'm sure loopholes like "we're a holding company of holding companies" might be invented to counter this, but if we tied this to real people rather than corporations it might work. Copyrights shouldn't last longer than humans.
  - flomo 10mo ago
    It's an interesting discussion. Also, a lot of stuff from the 19th century only became famous after copyright expired (and only sometimes was the author able to profit from this, other times they died in poverty.) 28+28+... might be a better model. I know there's a bunch of decent stuff from the 1990s which will never again have any real economic value, but would be fine for soundtracks or tictoks or MAME or etc.
gxqoz 10mo ago
I've always been curious about what it means for a movie to enter the public domain. A few years ago I sent a mail to Planet Money in what I thought would be an interesting hook but never got a response: "Hi Planet Money, today is public domain day. I see that Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis is now in the "public domain." I was curious what that meant at a practical level for a German language silent film. If Planet Money Movies wanted to release their own version of Metropolis, how would they do it? Can you just go to Amazon, buy the Blu Ray, and somehow release your own? What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray? What about the work that Transit Film did in restoring the film from the original negative? Does that count as some sort of newly original work? It's a silent film and a foreign film. How does the soundtrack and translation work? If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?"
- bpodgursky 10mo ago
  > If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?" This part at least, yes. A work being in the public domain doesn't mean someone is obligated to help you redistribute it.
- beerbajay 10mo ago
  A work being in the public domain just means that if somebody claims that they have the copyright and sue you for distributing that work, you will prevail in court. Restoration itself does not grant a new copyright. Other elements included in a restoration may be copyrighted e.g. new music or the graphic design of intertitles. A new translation is also copyrightable; essentially it's only the "original elements" that enter the public domain. Working around the anti-piracy measures of a blu-ray might be a crime, idk, but that's irrelevant to the copyright discussion; once you have a copy even if it came from an 'illicit' source, you're free to copy & distribute as you wish. But yes, you need to acquire a copy first; if you can't find a work at all, how would you copy it, practically?
- emodendroket 10mo ago
nevster 10mo ago
The Swallows and Amazons series is wonderful! Highly recommended.
- qingcharles 10mo ago
  I adored the BBC TV adaption in 1984. The theme still lives rent free in my head all these years later.
echelon 10mo ago
Perhaps most famously, "Betty Boop" is now public domain: https://reason.com/2026/01/01/betty-boop-enters-the-public-domain-but-only-as-a-dog/ https://reason.com/2026/01/01/betty-boop-enters-the-public-d... Just like with "Steamboat Willie" Mickey, it's only the very first iteration of the character.
shmerl 10mo ago
> Insatiability > The nation becomes enslaved to the Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called DAVAMESK B 2 which takes away their abilities to think and to mentally resist. Interesting. That's quite a bit before 1984 was written.
- eloisius 10mo ago
  And Zamyatin’s _We_ was even a few years earlier. Great artists steal.
  - dgellow 10mo ago
    Here is a link for people who don’t know about it (it’s not too obvious but “we” is the actual title): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) Published in 1924, it’s a short read, I would recommend, I personally find it more compelling than Orwell’s work
  - toyg 10mo ago
    It's not just that, it's that the topic was extremely actual. Between the Russian Revolution and the general state of European countries at the beginning of the XX century, a lot of intellectuals were working hard on the concepts of "fully rational" societies, fair governance, social efficiency, just social order, and so on. Somewhat ironically, what seems to have survived in the public consciousness is actually the critique of all those efforts (1984, We, etc). The Western mainstream seems to have abandoned any attempt to create a rational, enduring order from social chaos. Somehow we just accepted that things are fucked up and there is no hope of meaningfully unfuck them.
    - shmerl 10mo ago
      Those attempts inevitably resulted in fascist dystopias (just look at past and today dictatorships), so critiques of them were and are very on point. Positive examples that went in other directions, like Huliaipole anarchistic Free Territories didn't survive for long.
tombert 10mo ago
It sucks that the copyright period in the US is so ridiculously long, but it still makes me happy to see stuff finally entering the public domain again. I don't care much about Betty Boop and I don't really care about Pluto and Mickey all that much, but I'm very excited for The Maltese Falcon's novel being available, since I think that that one could actually be adapted into something pretty modern. Also, All Quiet on the Western Front is very arguably one of the very best movies ever made, and certainly one of the very best of the 30's if nothing else, so I am very much looking forward to fan restorations.
- neiman 10mo ago
  I don't care much about Betty Boop either, and I do care, like you, about The Maltese Falcon - but mostly I think that a version of The Maltese Falcon starring Betty Boop is definitely something I'd like to see!
  - Popeyes 10mo ago
    I've been bad... but I'm not all bad, boop boop de boop!
- renegade-otter 10mo ago
  The copyright period is long? If you are Disney, you can get it even longer because the U.S. Congress will do it for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
  - euroderf 10mo ago
    Yup, any time a friend gets all misty-eyed about Disney, remind them that Disney is the main driver behind absurdly, abusively long copyright.
    - Mindwipe 10mo ago
      No they aren't. This is an internet myth pushed by certain sci-fi writers doing incompetent research. Disney were certainly in favour of the US's most recent copyright extension, but the main driver of it was the need for the US to move to a similar period to the EU for international treaty reasons. The EU had moved to Life+70 years as a model because it unified to the longest period in the block when it unified the copyright period across the entire EU, under the logic that no copyright owner should have their term reduced as a result. The longest period in Europe was Germany, and Germany's long copyright period was the result of lobbying from local German publishers, nothing to do with American companies. It's really a bit of US exceptionalism to think Disney had much to do with it.
shevy-java 10mo ago
Everything should be in the public domain. I am aware that this is not realistic, for many reasons, but just like Richard Stallman, or the right to repair movement (e. g. Louis Rossmann) being vocal about it, or scientists who will prefer to publish with open access rather than be subject to the greedy Elsevier paywall, after the public already paid for the research - we need to strive for ideals here. So, all must be in the public domain. I actually think it should be without delay; seems usually the waiting time before it gets into the public domain is ... 75 years? Or any number where I am definitely no longer alive. So that is bad. Thus - public domain the everything. \o/
- ronsor 10mo ago
  Author's life + 75 years (basically infinity) for works owned by individuals. 95 years for works owned by corporations (long enough to become lost and/or irrelevant).
  - josh-sematic 10mo ago
    > long enough to become lost and/or irrelevant For the vast majority of things yes. But thankfully the cream of the crop that does stand the test of time eventually makes it to the public.
- visarga 10mo ago
  I'd be happy if the original expression remains protected but abstractions are open to reuse. Right now a work blocks more than its specific expression, a whole space is forbidden around it, like fan fiction. In other words what is needed is freedom to build on top of existing works.
- dinkumthinkum 10mo ago
  How is that a good ideal? As far as I know Stallman, not that he is objectively correct, does not claim all software should be in the public domain, he just has what amounts to a strong personal preference and advocacy. The idea that someone would not be able to protect a work that they toiled creating is pretty repugnant and while i will probably be massively downvoted, this i the view held by most reasonable people.
chr-s 10mo ago
We're getting into the 1930s now - the sound era and the start of the Golden Age. Here's some recommendations. The Divorcee - Norma Shearer won best actress for this performance of a sophisticated woman. She evens the score after her husband has a brief affair, and as this is pre-Hays code, she isn't punished for it. Hell's Angels - produced by Howard Hughes, is worth watching for the dogfighting stunts alone. 4 people died filming them. Holiday - Inferior to the later Hepburn/Grant remake, but still a solid rendition of the play. L'age d'Or - Luis Buñuel's surrealist showcase Animal Crackers - the Marx brothers, it's still funny
fromaj 10mo ago
PG Wodehouse is public domain now!
robin_reala 10mo ago
Standard Ebooks added a bunch of newly-US-PD novels: https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026 https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026 (I’m happy to have contributed three to the launch this year, hope you enjoy them.)
- raybb 10mo ago
  Which three did you contribute and how'd you pick them?
  - robin_reala 10mo ago
    I did Kafka’s The Castle, Agatha Christie’s Giant’s Bread, and Stella Benson’s The Faraway Bride. Been meaning to do a Kafka for a while but the Gutenberg editions are later translations that aren’t actually public domain. This is the first time a Kafka novel has entered the US PD. The other two I picked from the list of “works Standard Ebooks wants for public domain day” back in October. We’re reasonably organised about this.
neiman 10mo ago
I recently made a radical proposal of public domain rules; It's inspired by GNU software licenses. It goes like this: 1. Anyone can use anything that is in the public domain. 2. Any creation that uses elements from the public domain is also, automatically, in the public domain. 3. Activate retroactively: When the first book in a series (for example) gets into the public domain, then the whole series (and franchise) becomes public domain. (3) depends on what the initial rule is for something to get into the public domain. P.S: It's a thought experiment, not an actual "let's implement it now!" thing.
- ivan_gammel 10mo ago
  That would make any movies based on stories in public domain impossible, because it would destroy all financial incentives to make them. No, derivative works should be on their own terms.
  - neiman 10mo ago
    A few questions: 1. People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference? 2. I'm a mathematician - math is not copyrighted, yet it's still being done. 3. Is it really so important for society that copyrighted movies be based on old stories? Won't society benefit from new stories and characters? To be clear, I don't propose to really implement it. But the existing system also sucks. I'm thinking that maybe incorporating such an idea into the existing system - limiting what you can do with public domain work - can be beneficial.
    - ivan_gammel 10mo ago
      >People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference? The right question to ask is what do they have in common, and the answer is nothing but an artificial legal construct of IP. To write public domain software you need a computer and 2 sqm of space (or even less) that you occupy while working. Material resources needed to shoot one movie are one big reason you need financial model. 2. math is irrelevant here, has nothing in common with movies or music 3. yes. It’s our culture and our history.
smallnix 10mo ago
Interesting that EU is becoming stricter than US with growing life expectancy. Life + 70 can mean the work is protected 120 years (publish at 40, dies at 90)?
- troupo 10mo ago
  It's worse. There's also the war periods for which copyright time is extended in some countries like France. For example, lyrics to The Internationale were composed in 1871 and music in 1888. They fully entered public domain... in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale#Authorship_and_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale#Authorship_... Over 140 years of copyright.
- toyg 10mo ago
  European laws are stricter on paper but more loosely enforced. US laws are looser on paper but viciously enforced.
- quesera 10mo ago
  Some people publish meaningful works at age 20. And some people live to 100. That could be 150 years of copyright.
NoiseBert69 10mo ago
I bought the Public Domain Review Book. My guests love it!
mmsc 10mo ago
Metropolis becoming public domain in 2026 couldn't be more perfect, since the film is set in 2026. It is eerily similar to our times, too, unfortunately.
hindustanuday 10mo ago
[dead]
publicdebates 10mo ago
For 67k more: https://archive.org/details/texts?sort=-downloads&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&and%5B%5D=language%3A%22English%22&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221929%22 https://archive.org/details/texts?sort=-downloads&and%5B%5D=...
- publicdebates 10mo ago
  Most ironic find: Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 1, Group 2: Pamphlets, Leaflets, Contributions to Newspapers or Periodicals, Etc. Maps 1929: Vol 26 No 1-12 https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyri261libr https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyri261libr
  - bentley 10mo ago
    That was already public domain twice over—uncreative catalogues of data aren’t copyrightable in the United States (see Feist v. Rural), and works of the U.S. federal government aren’t copyrightable in the United States.
olvy0 10mo ago
Wallace Stevens' excellent book of poems, Harmonium, is also now free on Wikisource [0]. [0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harmonium_(Stevens) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harmonium_(Stevens)
lasgawe 10mo ago
Before visiting the site, I really thought this was about domain names.

430 points by apetresc 10mo ago

How does copyright work with recorded music? The article mentions that Charlie (Bird) Parker's music is now public domain in most of the world (life + 70 years), but most of his records are collaborations with other artists like Dizzy Gillespie who died much later, less than 50 years ago. I also wonder if that even matters if the records are owned by corporations. In those cases, how would I know if a record is public domain or not?

ronsor 10mo ago
There's a copyright for the music itself, but then each recording has its own copyright. Fun, isn't it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_copyright_symbol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording_copyright_symb...
- smegger001 10mo ago
  Sort of like how the movie Charade staring Carry Grant and Audrey Hepburn is public domain (due to failure to file back when that was required in the 1970's) but the soundtrack is not. So the music is in the pubic domain only when played in the movie but played separately the music is still protected.
  - golem14 10mo ago
    That is a nice movie, BTW.
dexterdog 10mo ago
You don't. It's all nonsense so unless you are planning on doing something official with the material just pirate it. Copyright went far beyond lunacy decades ago and should be ignored if possible.
- Guestmodinfo 10mo ago
  I wonder why should Tesla , who wanted to give us free electricity lost all his patents (time ran out in those times) while he was still living. And these rent seeking entities get to keep their copyrights for far too long. Are they more important than Nikola Tesla? Someone would retort that patent is not same as copyright. But really dude that's all just made up stuff by politicians and corporations. In the end Tesla died pennyless and these corporations and entities get to hoard all the human creativity till what it looks like an eternity for my meagre life span.
  - arlcode 10mo ago
    Patents can hold up economic development of certain industries much more than copyright. Which can have huge implications if they are on fundamentals. For example commercial 3D printing (using FDM) was likely significantly stalled until the relevant patent expired. Culture is of course important but there can always be new successful Alternatives.
  - TheDong 10mo ago
    As a society, modern humanity has decided that capitalism is more important than free electricity, even if it saves lives. We have enough electricity that everyone in the USA could have a generous free allowance. We've decided it's better to charge for electricity, and if an AI company can pay for it to train models, but someone freezing to death in their home cannot pay for it, that capital is a signal that the data-center should get the electricity, not the dying individual. This isn't a matter of copyright, this is a matter of how we structure society.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- flomo 10mo ago
  This is a tech forum, you don't need to act smart because you know piracy exists. It is an interesting question.
atmavatar 10mo ago
The records themselves are likely still copyrighted due to the collaborations, but you are free to record your own performance of the songs on said records.

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

Related: What will enter the public domain in 2026? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112

echelon 10mo ago
I really like this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118808 > I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off? I've always been a fan of this, but here's a great detraction: > I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had middling success. It was only after 2011 that the series exploded in popularity. Good Omens main peak was ~15 years after release. Hell, some books like Handmaiden's Tale were published in 1985 but only reached their peak in 2010. IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent. This is a very solid point. Works sometimes only become popular decades after their initial release. Perhaps a way to protect individual artists would be to limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity. The more you aggregate or hold on to, the steeper the cost to maintain the copyright. I'm sure loopholes like "we're a holding company of holding companies" might be invented to counter this, but if we tied this to real people rather than corporations it might work. Copyrights shouldn't last longer than humans.
- flomo 10mo ago
  It's an interesting discussion. Also, a lot of stuff from the 19th century only became famous after copyright expired (and only sometimes was the author able to profit from this, other times they died in poverty.) 28+28+... might be a better model. I know there's a bunch of decent stuff from the 1990s which will never again have any real economic value, but would be fine for soundtracks or tictoks or MAME or etc.

gxqoz 10mo ago

I've always been curious about what it means for a movie to enter the public domain. A few years ago I sent a mail to Planet Money in what I thought would be an interesting hook but never got a response: "Hi Planet Money, today is public domain day. I see that Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis is now in the "public domain." I was curious what that meant at a practical level for a German language silent film. If Planet Money Movies wanted to release their own version of Metropolis, how would they do it? Can you just go to Amazon, buy the Blu Ray, and somehow release your own? What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray? What about the work that Transit Film did in restoring the film from the original negative? Does that count as some sort of newly original work? It's a silent film and a foreign film. How does the soundtrack and translation work? If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?"

bpodgursky 10mo ago
> If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?" This part at least, yes. A work being in the public domain doesn't mean someone is obligated to help you redistribute it.
beerbajay 10mo ago
A work being in the public domain just means that if somebody claims that they have the copyright and sue you for distributing that work, you will prevail in court. Restoration itself does not grant a new copyright. Other elements included in a restoration may be copyrighted e.g. new music or the graphic design of intertitles. A new translation is also copyrightable; essentially it's only the "original elements" that enter the public domain. Working around the anti-piracy measures of a blu-ray might be a crime, idk, but that's irrelevant to the copyright discussion; once you have a copy even if it came from an 'illicit' source, you're free to copy & distribute as you wish. But yes, you need to acquire a copy first; if you can't find a work at all, how would you copy it, practically?
emodendroket 10mo ago

nevster 10mo ago

The Swallows and Amazons series is wonderful! Highly recommended.

qingcharles 10mo ago
I adored the BBC TV adaption in 1984. The theme still lives rent free in my head all these years later.

echelon 10mo ago

Perhaps most famously, "Betty Boop" is now public domain: https://reason.com/2026/01/01/betty-boop-enters-the-public-domain-but-only-as-a-dog/ https://reason.com/2026/01/01/betty-boop-enters-the-public-d... Just like with "Steamboat Willie" Mickey, it's only the very first iteration of the character.

shmerl 10mo ago

> Insatiability > The nation becomes enslaved to the Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called DAVAMESK B 2 which takes away their abilities to think and to mentally resist. Interesting. That's quite a bit before 1984 was written.

eloisius 10mo ago
And Zamyatin’s _We_ was even a few years earlier. Great artists steal.
- dgellow 10mo ago
  Here is a link for people who don’t know about it (it’s not too obvious but “we” is the actual title): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) Published in 1924, it’s a short read, I would recommend, I personally find it more compelling than Orwell’s work
- toyg 10mo ago
  It's not just that, it's that the topic was extremely actual. Between the Russian Revolution and the general state of European countries at the beginning of the XX century, a lot of intellectuals were working hard on the concepts of "fully rational" societies, fair governance, social efficiency, just social order, and so on. Somewhat ironically, what seems to have survived in the public consciousness is actually the critique of all those efforts (1984, We, etc). The Western mainstream seems to have abandoned any attempt to create a rational, enduring order from social chaos. Somehow we just accepted that things are fucked up and there is no hope of meaningfully unfuck them.
  - shmerl 10mo ago
    Those attempts inevitably resulted in fascist dystopias (just look at past and today dictatorships), so critiques of them were and are very on point. Positive examples that went in other directions, like Huliaipole anarchistic Free Territories didn't survive for long.

tombert 10mo ago

It sucks that the copyright period in the US is so ridiculously long, but it still makes me happy to see stuff finally entering the public domain again. I don't care much about Betty Boop and I don't really care about Pluto and Mickey all that much, but I'm very excited for The Maltese Falcon's novel being available, since I think that that one could actually be adapted into something pretty modern. Also, All Quiet on the Western Front is very arguably one of the very best movies ever made, and certainly one of the very best of the 30's if nothing else, so I am very much looking forward to fan restorations.

neiman 10mo ago
I don't care much about Betty Boop either, and I do care, like you, about The Maltese Falcon - but mostly I think that a version of The Maltese Falcon starring Betty Boop is definitely something I'd like to see!
- Popeyes 10mo ago
  I've been bad... but I'm not all bad, boop boop de boop!
renegade-otter 10mo ago
The copyright period is long? If you are Disney, you can get it even longer because the U.S. Congress will do it for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- euroderf 10mo ago
  Yup, any time a friend gets all misty-eyed about Disney, remind them that Disney is the main driver behind absurdly, abusively long copyright.
  - Mindwipe 10mo ago
    No they aren't. This is an internet myth pushed by certain sci-fi writers doing incompetent research. Disney were certainly in favour of the US's most recent copyright extension, but the main driver of it was the need for the US to move to a similar period to the EU for international treaty reasons. The EU had moved to Life+70 years as a model because it unified to the longest period in the block when it unified the copyright period across the entire EU, under the logic that no copyright owner should have their term reduced as a result. The longest period in Europe was Germany, and Germany's long copyright period was the result of lobbying from local German publishers, nothing to do with American companies. It's really a bit of US exceptionalism to think Disney had much to do with it.

shevy-java 10mo ago

Everything should be in the public domain. I am aware that this is not realistic, for many reasons, but just like Richard Stallman, or the right to repair movement (e. g. Louis Rossmann) being vocal about it, or scientists who will prefer to publish with open access rather than be subject to the greedy Elsevier paywall, after the public already paid for the research - we need to strive for ideals here. So, all must be in the public domain. I actually think it should be without delay; seems usually the waiting time before it gets into the public domain is ... 75 years? Or any number where I am definitely no longer alive. So that is bad. Thus - public domain the everything. \o/

ronsor 10mo ago
Author's life + 75 years (basically infinity) for works owned by individuals. 95 years for works owned by corporations (long enough to become lost and/or irrelevant).
- josh-sematic 10mo ago
  > long enough to become lost and/or irrelevant For the vast majority of things yes. But thankfully the cream of the crop that does stand the test of time eventually makes it to the public.
visarga 10mo ago
I'd be happy if the original expression remains protected but abstractions are open to reuse. Right now a work blocks more than its specific expression, a whole space is forbidden around it, like fan fiction. In other words what is needed is freedom to build on top of existing works.
dinkumthinkum 10mo ago
How is that a good ideal? As far as I know Stallman, not that he is objectively correct, does not claim all software should be in the public domain, he just has what amounts to a strong personal preference and advocacy. The idea that someone would not be able to protect a work that they toiled creating is pretty repugnant and while i will probably be massively downvoted, this i the view held by most reasonable people.

chr-s 10mo ago

We're getting into the 1930s now - the sound era and the start of the Golden Age. Here's some recommendations. The Divorcee - Norma Shearer won best actress for this performance of a sophisticated woman. She evens the score after her husband has a brief affair, and as this is pre-Hays code, she isn't punished for it. Hell's Angels - produced by Howard Hughes, is worth watching for the dogfighting stunts alone. 4 people died filming them. Holiday - Inferior to the later Hepburn/Grant remake, but still a solid rendition of the play. L'age d'Or - Luis Buñuel's surrealist showcase Animal Crackers - the Marx brothers, it's still funny

fromaj 10mo ago

PG Wodehouse is public domain now!

robin_reala 10mo ago

Standard Ebooks added a bunch of newly-US-PD novels: https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026 https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026 (I’m happy to have contributed three to the launch this year, hope you enjoy them.)

raybb 10mo ago
Which three did you contribute and how'd you pick them?
- robin_reala 10mo ago
  I did Kafka’s The Castle, Agatha Christie’s Giant’s Bread, and Stella Benson’s The Faraway Bride. Been meaning to do a Kafka for a while but the Gutenberg editions are later translations that aren’t actually public domain. This is the first time a Kafka novel has entered the US PD. The other two I picked from the list of “works Standard Ebooks wants for public domain day” back in October. We’re reasonably organised about this.

neiman 10mo ago

I recently made a radical proposal of public domain rules; It's inspired by GNU software licenses. It goes like this: 1. Anyone can use anything that is in the public domain. 2. Any creation that uses elements from the public domain is also, automatically, in the public domain. 3. Activate retroactively: When the first book in a series (for example) gets into the public domain, then the whole series (and franchise) becomes public domain. (3) depends on what the initial rule is for something to get into the public domain. P.S: It's a thought experiment, not an actual "let's implement it now!" thing.

ivan_gammel 10mo ago
That would make any movies based on stories in public domain impossible, because it would destroy all financial incentives to make them. No, derivative works should be on their own terms.
- neiman 10mo ago
  A few questions: 1. People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference? 2. I'm a mathematician - math is not copyrighted, yet it's still being done. 3. Is it really so important for society that copyrighted movies be based on old stories? Won't society benefit from new stories and characters? To be clear, I don't propose to really implement it. But the existing system also sucks. I'm thinking that maybe incorporating such an idea into the existing system - limiting what you can do with public domain work - can be beneficial.
  - ivan_gammel 10mo ago
    >People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference? The right question to ask is what do they have in common, and the answer is nothing but an artificial legal construct of IP. To write public domain software you need a computer and 2 sqm of space (or even less) that you occupy while working. Material resources needed to shoot one movie are one big reason you need financial model. 2. math is irrelevant here, has nothing in common with movies or music 3. yes. It’s our culture and our history.

smallnix 10mo ago

Interesting that EU is becoming stricter than US with growing life expectancy. Life + 70 can mean the work is protected 120 years (publish at 40, dies at 90)?

troupo 10mo ago
It's worse. There's also the war periods for which copyright time is extended in some countries like France. For example, lyrics to The Internationale were composed in 1871 and music in 1888. They fully entered public domain... in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale#Authorship_and_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale#Authorship_... Over 140 years of copyright.
toyg 10mo ago
European laws are stricter on paper but more loosely enforced. US laws are looser on paper but viciously enforced.
quesera 10mo ago
Some people publish meaningful works at age 20. And some people live to 100. That could be 150 years of copyright.

NoiseBert69 10mo ago

I bought the Public Domain Review Book. My guests love it!

mmsc 10mo ago

Metropolis becoming public domain in 2026 couldn't be more perfect, since the film is set in 2026. It is eerily similar to our times, too, unfortunately.

hindustanuday 10mo ago

[dead]

publicdebates 10mo ago

For 67k more: https://archive.org/details/texts?sort=-downloads&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&and%5B%5D=language%3A%22English%22&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221929%22 https://archive.org/details/texts?sort=-downloads&and%5B%5D=...

publicdebates 10mo ago
Most ironic find: Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 1, Group 2: Pamphlets, Leaflets, Contributions to Newspapers or Periodicals, Etc. Maps 1929: Vol 26 No 1-12 https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyri261libr https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyri261libr
- bentley 10mo ago
  That was already public domain twice over—uncreative catalogues of data aren’t copyrightable in the United States (see Feist v. Rural), and works of the U.S. federal government aren’t copyrightable in the United States.

olvy0 10mo ago

Wallace Stevens' excellent book of poems, Harmonium, is also now free on Wikisource [0]. [0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harmonium_(Stevens) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Harmonium_(Stevens)

lasgawe 10mo ago

Before visiting the site, I really thought this was about domain names.