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

Sun Oct 17 16:39:34 UTC 2010

Actually, if you publish this, which it appears you already did,
a few corrections might be in order:

It's not that nothing will enter the public domain, people still
will declare their works public domain every year, it's just the
copyright won't actually "expire" in that sense.

I don't know the legal terminology, but that's the real concept.

I will also wager with anyone that US Copyright will be extended
yet again by the time anything actually expires.

Right now 1922 is public domain here.

Could be we will get a year or two, then maybe again, but 1926's
date will never expire under the currect regimes and systems, as
that would include "Winnie the Pooh" and 1928, Mickey the Mouse,
both of which would be "defended" with billions by Disney, Inc.

For "defended" you might have to substitute lobbying, briberies,
or what have you, depending if there is a real battle here.

As I understood it back for the 1998 US Copyright Act Disney had
spent hundreds of millions extra at a result, much of that going
to the Milne Estate for 20 more years of Winnie the Pooh.

I am not a lawyer. . .this is NOT a legal opinion or legal advice.

IANAL = I am not a lawyer.

I'm just passing on what I have heard.

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> 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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> >
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