Did You Celebrate Public Domain Day?

Many readers and the public in general don’t know about Public Domain Day.

That’s January 1 of ever year when books, music, films, songs, and artistic works, once protected by U.S. copyright law suddenly become part of the public domain.

On January 1 of this year, everything from 1923 that was previously copyrighted—rights held exclusively by those who created the works—became available in public domain.

Generally speaking copyright protection for works published after 1922 but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication.

If the work was created, but not published, before 1978, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

Now In Public Domain

On January 1, these works entered the public domain: Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links, any poem from Robert Frost’s Pulitzer Prize-winning compendium New Hampshire. I checked Kindle and found dozens of copies of The Prophet published this month.

Other authors’ works are from: D.H. Lawrence, Agatha Christie Edith Wharton, Robert Frost, and Rudyard Kipling.

Because of entering public domain, movie theaters can show films without paying a licensing fee. Movies like Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.

Theatrical companies can perform songs from London Calling by Noel Coward or Stop Flirting by Gershwin.

Supposedly, giving free access to older works creates a new audience for them.

In reality, what it means is that authors if they’re still alive or their estates now must compete with everyone who wants to publish or issue the work in some form without having to pay a dime.

If you want to see a complete list of everything that entered public domain this year, click to visit the page on Duke Law.

Good or Bad

That’s the question. I guess it depends on your viewpoint.

If you want to indie publish an ebook of one of the iconic works that’s now in public domain, there’s nothing to stop you.

For readers, it’s not so good because a lot of schlock copies will hit the ebook stream. Badly formatted—badly produced in every way.

For authors and their heirs this can be cringe-worthy to see unauthorized use of the original book even to changing the original text.

Anyone can publish unauthorized sequels or spin-offs too. That seriously bothers me as a reader and as an author.

Publishers will be competing with a lot of amateurs for sales. If you’re a reader, be sure the book has good production values before you buy it.

Anyone can publish one of these works or post it free online.

For writers, this means thousands of new free ebooks with which to compete. Ugh.

Takeaway Truth

If you choose to publish any of these new entries into public domain, at least make it a good effort with good design and never touch the author’s original text.