Once in the public domain, the work may be used by anyone for any purpose, without permission of the copyright owner, since there is no longer a copyright owner. As a result, "on each year's January 1st an impressive wealth of knowledge, information and beauty becomes freely available to humankind."
The length of copyright protection varies by country: currently, in the United States, it lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years after death, for works created after January 1, 1978.
As of January 1, 2023, books, films and music created in 1927 just entered the public domain due to the Copyright Term Extension Act.
Notable films entering the public domain in the United States include: Metropolis, the first feature talkie The Jazz Singer, the first Academy Award for Best Picture winner Wings, Alfred Hitchcock's first thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, and the Clara Bow star vehicle It.
Notable books entering the public domain in the United States include To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder, Show Boat by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern, and the original versions of the first three books of The Hardy Boys.
To find additional books, music and films entering the public domain, visit Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain at https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2023/
To determine when a particular work will enter the public domain in the U.S., there are numerous public domain calculators, such as the Public Domain Sherpa. In contrast, in other countries with the same time limits as the U.S., copyright protection lasts strictly for the life of the author plus 70 years after death,
In case you were wondering, copyright in the United States is protected by the U.S. Constitution in what is known as the “Patent and Copyright Clause,” i.e., Article I Section 8 Clause 8, to wit, “The Congress shall have power… To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” (See United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.) Copyright protections are given to authors, painters, composers, and creators in order to encourage them to write, paint, compose, and create. Once a book is written or a symphony composed or a painting completed, copyright law allows the author/composer/artist to reap all rewards (including monetary) from her/his creation. However, copyright terms expire after a set number of years to allow others to make use of a work. The work can then become a building block for new creations, new knowledge, and new artistic endeavours: “people can transform a poem into song lyrics, or make a movie based on a public domain novel.” And what sorts of works are copyrightable? According to the United States Copyright Office, “copyright…protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.”
This Public Domain Day (each year's January 1st) website is an initiative of COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain, with the support of the Open Knowledge Foundation. For more information, two excellent websites are The Public Domain Review and Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
