[pd-discuss] Public Domain Day 2011 / Which works enter the PD in 2011?

Jonathan Gray jonathan.gray at okfn.org
Sun Oct 17 11:10:52 UTC 2010


Yes indeed Michael!

Duke's analysis of this from last year is interesting:

"What is entering the public domain in the United States? Sadly, we
will have nothing to celebrate this January 1st. Not a single
published work is entering the public domain this year. Or next year.
Or the year after. Or the year after that. In fact, in the United
States, no publication will enter the public domain until 2019. And
wherever in the world you live, you now have to wait a very long time
for anything to reach the public domain. When the first copyright law
was written in the United States, copyright lasted 14 years, renewable
for another 14 years if the author wished. Jefferson or Madison could
look at the books written by their contemporaries and confidently
expect them to be in the public domain within a decade or two. Now? In
the United States, as in most of the world, copyright lasts for the
author’s lifetime, plus another 70 years. And we’ve changed the law so
that every creative work is automatically copyrighted, even if the
author does nothing. What do these laws mean to you? As you can read
in our analysis here, they impose great (and in many cases entirely
unnecessary) costs on creativity, on libraries and archives, on
education and on scholarship. More broadly, they impose costs on our
entire collective culture."

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 1:24 AM, Michael S. Hart <hart at pglaf.org> wrote:
>
> I presume you all might know that it is quite likely that no copyright
> will ever expire again in the United States since the 1998 Copyrights,
> "The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act" were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court
> and now it appears there will be extensions ad infinitum in spite of a
> word "limited" defining copyright terms in the U.S. Constitution.
>
>
> Thanks!!!
>
> Please read and save the information below.
>
> I take my email very seriously, much more than do most people,
> and I reply to just about every message I can figure out wants
> a genuine reply;  IF NO PROMPT REPLY FROM ME PLEASE RESEND!!!
>
>
> It's "The Year of the eBook!"
>
> In 2010 you could get about 3 3/4 million free eBooks at:
>
> http://www.worldebookfair.org
>
> From July 4 through August 4,
>
> Next year we are hoping for 5 million!!!
>
>
>
> Michael S. Hart
> Founder
> Project Gutenberg
> Inventor of eBooks
>
>
> Recommended Books:
>
> Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury:  For The Right Brain
> Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand:  For The Left Brain [or both]
> Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson:  To Understand The Internet
> The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster:  Lesson of Life. . .
>
> If you ever do not get a prompt response, please resend, then
> keep resending, I won't mind getting several copies per week.
> Yes, I put this part in twice, it is that important to me!!!
>
>
> On Sat, 16 Oct 2010, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Just a quick note to get the ball rolling on preparations for Public
>> Domain Day 2011!
>>
>> To start off with, it would be good to have a clear picture of which
>> works are going to be entering the public domain (in different
>> jurisdictions) in the coming year.
>>
>> A rough guide is here:
>>
>> http://publicdomainworks.net/stats/year/2011
>>
>> I also cross referenced this with:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:1940_deaths
>> http://dbpedia.neofonie.de/browse/rdf-type:Person/deathDate-year~:1940~1940/
>>
>> As far as I can see, it looks like 'notable' creators whose work will
>> be entering the public domain include:
>>
>>   * F. Scott Fitzgerald
>>   * Paul Klee
>>   * Mikhail Bulgakov
>>   * John Buchan
>>   * Walter Benjamin
>>   * Nathanael West
>>
>> To all of you copyright experts: does this seem accurate?
>>
>> Here are a few more which I know less about but whom might be worth
>> investigating a bit more:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Vuillard
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Iorga
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Mac_Tu
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Mir%C3%B3
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Frederic_Benson
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Markham
>>
>> Any others to add?
>>
>> Also, FYI, I have started working on a new website which will be
>> launched on Public Domain Day 2011. Some information is available at:
>>
>> http://jonathangray.org/2010/10/17/introducing-the-public-domain-review/
>> http://publicdomainreview.okfn.org
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>>
>
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-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
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