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.
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.
The parity excuse is always trotted out, but notice that nobody actually does parity. That US law doesn't deliver the same thing as the existing EU law, it just increases all the US limits with "parity" offered as justification.
That's on purpose to allow the same parties (if not called out by the public) to run to the EU to demand more "parity" increasing the EU limits too. Back and forth forever.
I'm not sure that this is correct. Spain used to be life+80 (a copyright term that dates back to 1879) and this got reduced to life+70 (but only for authors who die on or after late 1987, so this is a long way from affecting PD status) with EU-wide rules.
the exact details of EU copyright rules and lengths are probably difficult to work out, at least as difficult as saying what the laws are regarding what constitutes a felony in the United States, since that really depends on what state you're in.
But I would have to say that yes, it is mainly the EU that drives longer copyright, because EU copyright is not based on a model of doing things to help society but because there is a moral right of ownership that is possessed by the creator of a work. This of course explains why often something is out of copyright in the U.S but still under copyright in the EU but I don't think I have ever heard of the reverse applying (I'm sure HN can come up with an edge case though)
The situation with public domain in part because most US government works are public domain and PD isn’t even possible in some European countries—related to moral rights.
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!
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?"
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?
> 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?
Yes.
For example, wikipedia has a copy of Metrpolis and that's basically what happened
Amazon Prime Video in fact has multiple low-quality versions of some films that have accidentally found their way into the public domain due to negligence of rightsholders, like John Wayne's McLintock!
Since it is the holiday season, reminds me of "It’s a Wonderful Life", which everyone thought was in the public domain, and it became a christmas tradition because it was all over the place. Well, eventually they dug up a copyright on some of the soundtrack.
That's an interesting angle. Wonder if that part of the movie could be rescored with something in the public domain so the rescored version could be distributed freely. It also reminds of the Commodore 64 game for 'Blade Runner' which was oddly stated to have been inspired by the soundtrack rather than by the movie itself. I've seen claims that they couldn't get a license to do a video game based on the movie, so being inspired by the soundtrack was a workaround. That never seemed legally grounded to me but copyright, especially the components of musical performances, gets really strange sometimes.
Thinking about it, there's just no business model in rescoring "It's a Wonderful Life". You want to get into a pricewar with a studio?
Anyway, hollywood hated this situation and was glad to see it under control. The issue is now viewing is pretty limited. NBC made it a prime time event.
(Mentioning some commodoretard's 'theory' on copyright detracts from your post, imo. They just didn't bother going after him)
> If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them?
This is a legitimate problem in public domain releasing. If you're trying to release a really good public domain version then you might need access to very high quality source materials. With a movie it would obviously be nice to scan the camera negatives. If the studio has those negatives in a vault, then you're cooked.
Didn't Bill Gates or some others buy up thousands of old artworks and put them on ice so they could paywall the scans?
>What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray?
In the US, bypassing DRM is a crime even if the intended use is legal. There are exceptions for things like criticism and accessibility, but I don't believe they'd be relevant.
Maybe it'd be as simple as selling your new copies as "for review purposes" and it'd be legal, I'm not sure.
The ban on bypassing DRM only applies to copyright protection measures, and if a work is in the public domain there is no copyright protection on it. It does unambiguously affect fair use of copyrighted works, but just dumping fully-PD works that happen to reside on DRM-protected media ought to be OK.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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
If something is important culturally and historically, financial incentives aren't really important (assuming you're not making a joke about Hollywood being creatively bankrupt).
You're comparing apples and really big complicated apples. Books are protected by copyright and they only need a computer and 2 sqm of space, right? People make copyright protected videos with 2 sqm of space and a phone that get as many views as many large budget movies.
I think the differences between inventing a story or song and inventing a theory are not as great as you pretend.
The big difference really is status quo and tradition.
>I think the differences between inventing a story or song and inventing a theory are not as great as you pretend.
I do not pretend anything and I‘m not talking about inventing a story. I‘m talking about movie production, which, even with heavy use of AI is by orders of magnitude more expensive than a piece of free software, and certainly cannot be done with a single computer.
> 1. People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference?
The GPL family of licences are significantly different from Public Domain. There is still the option of relicensing for commercial use, for example, which is moot under a public domain status. Though some¹ treat the GPL as PD anyway…
MIT might be a more valid comparator, so to answer the question from that PoV: Money. Many OSS contributors do it to scratch their own itch, or for some definition of “community”, the cost of contribution is generally low (or feels like free) and they don't need anything back. Some are supported by donations or sponsorship but not the majority. Those in commercial environments are supporting projects (by contributions or sponsorship) that are useful to that commercial interest, so there is a benefit there but no need for direct payment (they may get payment for support and/or consulting services or via subscriptions for a paid-for hosted instance of whatever). Someone making a film of a book, or a licensed sequel/prequel/other, unless they are doing it for love or just shits & giggles like some fan-made efforts, generally needs/wants to make profit from it, especially in the case of film/TV which can have a large up-front cost - that is unlikely to happen if the new derived work is automatically public domain.
> 2. […] math is not copyrighted, yet it's still being done.
Not for Hollywood level money, it usually isn't :)
> 3. […] Won't society benefit from new stories and characters?
Yes, it certainly would IMO. But it turns out there is less easy money in that. People flock en-mass to works based on familiar IP more than they do to original works, for better or (often) worse. To paraphrase MiB: A person is classy and appreciates original good art, people are a bunch of dumb consumers of fast food for the mind.
Original works do sometimes smash through that barrier of course, they then often become the new IP that a bunch of derived works are based on so in several years time they are part of the cycle makers of new original works are competing with.
> 3. Is it really so important for society that copyrighted movies be based on old stories? […]
No. But it is important for the entertainment industry, for the reason noted above. What is good for society isn't necessarily the same as what people are willing to pay for, and what is good for the producers of works (away from those doing it purely for their own satisfaction or sense of artistic vision) is what people are willing to pay to experience.
--------
[1] Onyx, makers of the Boox line of GPL violating e-ink devices, to name one of them², see comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41412582 for more discussion about that.
[2] I pick them out from that small crowd because I might have been interested enough to buy one of their products were it not for this issue. Unfortunately many buyers are unaware of the matter, or are aware but don't care sufficiently for it to change their buying decision.
#1 is known to be problematic in open source, so it would need qualifications. #2 is so broad, it would make practically anything PD. And there's no reason for #3. It might even be implied by #2.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
> 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.
I don't think it should be taken as obvious that authors profiting off old works is a deserved right or positive.
Game of Thrones was originally published in 1996, but the more recent books are more recent. I think that GRR Martin's books would be giving him sizeable profit, even if someone else were able to make GoT fanfiction in the same universe, and the GoT TV Series would still have to pay him to use the more recent copyrighted books, not just the settings and characters from the original.
There is already intrinsic value in having written the original work, and that intrinsic value will make you the best person to consult on a TV adaption or make sequels, even if the original work is public domain and in theory anyone could adapt it.
If an author makes something 20 years ago, doesn't build on the universe any more beyond that, and is unable to compete in their own universe they built against other authors once it goes public domain and becomes popular, well, then tough luck for the author.
Let's look at how this works for software: every piece of open-source software out there is something that in theory another company could take and sell as their own. Red Hat Linux is Open Source, so sure anyone can make their own... and yet Red Hat can sell consulting services and new versions of it because they're the only group with proper expertise there.
> limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity
Entities are unfortunately quite easy to fake and difficult to define in a fool-proof way.
If you can still license copyrights, then holding companies would become the norm. Like, right now LucasArts owns StarWars, and LucasArts is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney, but if we had a limit on how many copyrights an entity can hold, Disney wouldn't acquire LucasArts, and would instead pay for an exclusive copyright license.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
Yet they didn’t get copyright extended again in the 27ish years after, and Mickey is in the public domain (well steamboat willy).
Yup, any time a friend gets all misty-eyed about Disney, remind them that Disney is the main driver behind absurdly, abusively long copyright.
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.
The parity excuse is always trotted out, but notice that nobody actually does parity. That US law doesn't deliver the same thing as the existing EU law, it just increases all the US limits with "parity" offered as justification.
That's on purpose to allow the same parties (if not called out by the public) to run to the EU to demand more "parity" increasing the EU limits too. Back and forth forever.
I'm not sure that this is correct. Spain used to be life+80 (a copyright term that dates back to 1879) and this got reduced to life+70 (but only for authors who die on or after late 1987, so this is a long way from affecting PD status) with EU-wide rules.
the exact details of EU copyright rules and lengths are probably difficult to work out, at least as difficult as saying what the laws are regarding what constitutes a felony in the United States, since that really depends on what state you're in.
But I would have to say that yes, it is mainly the EU that drives longer copyright, because EU copyright is not based on a model of doing things to help society but because there is a moral right of ownership that is possessed by the creator of a work. This of course explains why often something is out of copyright in the U.S but still under copyright in the EU but I don't think I have ever heard of the reverse applying (I'm sure HN can come up with an edge case though)
The situation with public domain in part because most US government works are public domain and PD isn’t even possible in some European countries—related to moral rights.
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!
I've been bad... but I'm not all bad, boop boop de boop!
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?"
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?
> 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?
Yes.
For example, wikipedia has a copy of Metrpolis and that's basically what happened
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metropolis_(1927).webm
Amazon Prime Video in fact has multiple low-quality versions of some films that have accidentally found their way into the public domain due to negligence of rightsholders, like John Wayne's McLintock!
Since it is the holiday season, reminds me of "It’s a Wonderful Life", which everyone thought was in the public domain, and it became a christmas tradition because it was all over the place. Well, eventually they dug up a copyright on some of the soundtrack.
That's an interesting angle. Wonder if that part of the movie could be rescored with something in the public domain so the rescored version could be distributed freely. It also reminds of the Commodore 64 game for 'Blade Runner' which was oddly stated to have been inspired by the soundtrack rather than by the movie itself. I've seen claims that they couldn't get a license to do a video game based on the movie, so being inspired by the soundtrack was a workaround. That never seemed legally grounded to me but copyright, especially the components of musical performances, gets really strange sometimes.
I mean yeah that would certainly be possible.
Thinking about it, there's just no business model in rescoring "It's a Wonderful Life". You want to get into a pricewar with a studio?
Anyway, hollywood hated this situation and was glad to see it under control. The issue is now viewing is pretty limited. NBC made it a prime time event.
(Mentioning some commodoretard's 'theory' on copyright detracts from your post, imo. They just didn't bother going after him)
> If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them?
This is a legitimate problem in public domain releasing. If you're trying to release a really good public domain version then you might need access to very high quality source materials. With a movie it would obviously be nice to scan the camera negatives. If the studio has those negatives in a vault, then you're cooked.
Didn't Bill Gates or some others buy up thousands of old artworks and put them on ice so they could paywall the scans?
>What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray?
In the US, bypassing DRM is a crime even if the intended use is legal. There are exceptions for things like criticism and accessibility, but I don't believe they'd be relevant.
Maybe it'd be as simple as selling your new copies as "for review purposes" and it'd be legal, I'm not sure.
The ban on bypassing DRM only applies to copyright protection measures, and if a work is in the public domain there is no copyright protection on it. It does unambiguously affect fair use of copyrighted works, but just dumping fully-PD works that happen to reside on DRM-protected media ought to be OK.
> 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.
Standard Ebooks added a bunch of newly-US-PD novels: https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026
(I’m happy to have contributed three to the launch this year, hope you enjoy them.)
Which three did you contribute and how'd you pick them?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
If something is important culturally and historically, financial incentives aren't really important (assuming you're not making a joke about Hollywood being creatively bankrupt).
You're comparing apples and really big complicated apples. Books are protected by copyright and they only need a computer and 2 sqm of space, right? People make copyright protected videos with 2 sqm of space and a phone that get as many views as many large budget movies.
I think the differences between inventing a story or song and inventing a theory are not as great as you pretend.
The big difference really is status quo and tradition.
>I think the differences between inventing a story or song and inventing a theory are not as great as you pretend.
I do not pretend anything and I‘m not talking about inventing a story. I‘m talking about movie production, which, even with heavy use of AI is by orders of magnitude more expensive than a piece of free software, and certainly cannot be done with a single computer.
> 1. People still do software based on the GNU license. What's the difference?
The GPL family of licences are significantly different from Public Domain. There is still the option of relicensing for commercial use, for example, which is moot under a public domain status. Though some¹ treat the GPL as PD anyway…
MIT might be a more valid comparator, so to answer the question from that PoV: Money. Many OSS contributors do it to scratch their own itch, or for some definition of “community”, the cost of contribution is generally low (or feels like free) and they don't need anything back. Some are supported by donations or sponsorship but not the majority. Those in commercial environments are supporting projects (by contributions or sponsorship) that are useful to that commercial interest, so there is a benefit there but no need for direct payment (they may get payment for support and/or consulting services or via subscriptions for a paid-for hosted instance of whatever). Someone making a film of a book, or a licensed sequel/prequel/other, unless they are doing it for love or just shits & giggles like some fan-made efforts, generally needs/wants to make profit from it, especially in the case of film/TV which can have a large up-front cost - that is unlikely to happen if the new derived work is automatically public domain.
> 2. […] math is not copyrighted, yet it's still being done.
Not for Hollywood level money, it usually isn't :)
> 3. […] Won't society benefit from new stories and characters?
Yes, it certainly would IMO. But it turns out there is less easy money in that. People flock en-mass to works based on familiar IP more than they do to original works, for better or (often) worse. To paraphrase MiB: A person is classy and appreciates original good art, people are a bunch of dumb consumers of fast food for the mind.
Original works do sometimes smash through that barrier of course, they then often become the new IP that a bunch of derived works are based on so in several years time they are part of the cycle makers of new original works are competing with.
> 3. Is it really so important for society that copyrighted movies be based on old stories? […]
No. But it is important for the entertainment industry, for the reason noted above. What is good for society isn't necessarily the same as what people are willing to pay for, and what is good for the producers of works (away from those doing it purely for their own satisfaction or sense of artistic vision) is what people are willing to pay to experience.
--------
[1] Onyx, makers of the Boox line of GPL violating e-ink devices, to name one of them², see comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41412582 for more discussion about that.
[2] I pick them out from that small crowd because I might have been interested enough to buy one of their products were it not for this issue. Unfortunately many buyers are unaware of the matter, or are aware but don't care sufficiently for it to change their buying decision.
#1 is known to be problematic in open source, so it would need qualifications. #2 is so broad, it would make practically anything PD. And there's no reason for #3. It might even be implied by #2.
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)?
Some people publish meaningful works at age 20. And some people live to 100.
That could be 150 years of copyright.
European laws are stricter on paper but more loosely enforced.
US laws are looser on paper but viciously enforced.
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_... Over 140 years of copyright.
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?
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_symb...
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.
That is a nice movie, BTW.
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.
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.
This is a tech forum, you don't need to act smart because you know piracy exists. It is an interesting question.
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.
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.
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.
For 67k more:
https://archive.org/details/texts?sort=-downloads&and%5B%5D=...
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
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.
The Swallows and Amazons series is wonderful! Highly recommended.
I adored the BBC TV adaption in 1984. The theme still lives rent free in my head all these years later.
I bought the Public Domain Review Book. My guests love it!
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
PG Wodehouse is public domain now!
Related:
What will enter the public domain in 2026?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112
I really like this subthread:
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.
I don't think it should be taken as obvious that authors profiting off old works is a deserved right or positive.
Game of Thrones was originally published in 1996, but the more recent books are more recent. I think that GRR Martin's books would be giving him sizeable profit, even if someone else were able to make GoT fanfiction in the same universe, and the GoT TV Series would still have to pay him to use the more recent copyrighted books, not just the settings and characters from the original.
There is already intrinsic value in having written the original work, and that intrinsic value will make you the best person to consult on a TV adaption or make sequels, even if the original work is public domain and in theory anyone could adapt it.
If an author makes something 20 years ago, doesn't build on the universe any more beyond that, and is unable to compete in their own universe they built against other authors once it goes public domain and becomes popular, well, then tough luck for the author.
Let's look at how this works for software: every piece of open-source software out there is something that in theory another company could take and sell as their own. Red Hat Linux is Open Source, so sure anyone can make their own... and yet Red Hat can sell consulting services and new versions of it because they're the only group with proper expertise there.
> limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity
Entities are unfortunately quite easy to fake and difficult to define in a fool-proof way.
If you can still license copyrights, then holding companies would become the norm. Like, right now LucasArts owns StarWars, and LucasArts is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney, but if we had a limit on how many copyrights an entity can hold, Disney wouldn't acquire LucasArts, and would instead pay for an exclusive copyright license.
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.
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/
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).
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.
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.
As someone married to another who has toiled her life away creating I totally agree.
> 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.
And Zamyatin’s _We_ was even a few years earlier. Great artists steal.
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.
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)
Published in 1924, it’s a short read, I would recommend, I personally find it more compelling than Orwell’s work
Perhaps most famously, "Betty Boop" is now public domain:
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.