At first I thought I'd create a thread where folks could list books that would be entering the public domain in the near future when I noticed that the copyright date for "Brave New World" was 1932... my assumption was that copyright duration was about 75 years, and that Brave New World would be entering the public domain next year. However, reading what I could about US copyright law on Wikipedia just tells me that for works created before the misinformed Sonny Bono reforms of 1978 but after 1923, the situation is complicated. I found this informative chart with little searching:

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

Anyone know how to find renewal dates for copyrighted works?

Renewals were recorded.

Not all records are available online, though.

See http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/ for related info.

That's one of my biggest gripes about copyright laws. Why should things take so long to expire? That can't possibly be justified as best for public interest.

It goes back to the primary purpose of copyright law -- protecting the interests of the person who wrote the stuff in the first place. I think the general thing was 75 years after the death of the original copyright holder (to protect the rights of the holder's family too). They only really protect the public interest indirectly in that they ecourage folks to generate intellectual property and sell it. :smile:

These days it more or less gets extended everytime Walt Disney's (the man) copyrights come up for expiration, Disney (the Co.) has been successfull in extending them so far.

One interesting bit of trivia here is that Peter Pan's original copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan#Copyright_status) is actually held by a children's hospital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ormond_Street_Hospital) in England, so it basically won't expire as long as the hospital is around.

It goes back to the primary purpose of copyright law -- protecting the interests of the person who wrote the stuff in the first place. I think the general thing was 75 years after the death of the original copyright holder (to protect the rights of the holder's family too). They only really protect the public interest indirectly in that they ecourage folks to generate intellectual property and sell it.

Actually, I think you've got that backwards. The *primary* purpose of copyright is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts"[1]. It tries to accomplish this by providing a temporary monopoly for content creators. The idea is that society and culture grows as a whole when people contribute to it (patents especially - one big problem prior to IP laws was inventors and artisans keeping their methods secret, so that they couldn't be copied. This meant that some very useful processes and creations died with the creator). Anyway, the *goal* is to expand the public domain, the *means* is monopoly.

Lately, much legislation has been passed that gets this backwards. In fact, I think that's the problem with the way we look at copyright today: most people see its purpose as rewarding copyright holders, rather than enhancing the public good. Retroactive copyright extension is a good example - it obviously doesn't encourage creators to create new works. In fact, it robs the public domain, so it almost directly works *against* the purpose of copyright. I think Congress possibly violated the Constitution by abusing their power in that manner, even.

I'm not really jumping on you, Natch, I just can't let a good opportunity to rant about copyright get by ;-)

[1] "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" - US Constitution, Article I, section 8

At first I thought I'd create a thread where folks could list books that would be entering the public domain in the near future when I noticed that the copyright date for "Brave New World" was 1932... my assumption was that copyright duration was about 75 years, and that Brave New World would be entering the public domain next year.

That's an interesting chart. It looks like (unless I'm missing something) anything that's not already public domain won't be public domain until 2019, at the earliest. (If it was published in 1923 and the copyright was renewed).

Somewhat sad, really. And that's without any other changes or extensions that happen between now and then...

Anyway, you could create that thread, but it wouldn't have any posts for a while ;-)

Actually, I think you've got that backwards. The *primary* purpose of copyright is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts"[1]. It tries to accomplish this by providing a temporary monopoly for content creators.That's more or less what I was trying to say, bingle, though you seed it a good deal more succinctly. :)

Further, I don't feel jumped on at all, glad to have the additional info, in fact (it's been a long time since my Mass Comm. & Law course in college, and stuff gets fuzzy when I don't use it).

Regarding ranting about the gub'mint exceeding the Constitution, I'm always open to that kind of rant (frequently to my wife's disgust -- she has to insist that I not rant on our dates). This isn't that sort of forum, so I'll resist the urge to dive in myself -- you've already covered the relevant points, and I'd only be able to go way off-topic. :grin:

Yeah, I could really go on a rant here - was trying to keep my original topic restricted to fact-checking, but MAN those extensions and such get on my nerves, Mr. Mouse. I try to stick within the law and so become aware of it, yet I exercise "fair use" to the fullest extent I can (I buy LOTS of music online - I don't share it, but I remove the annoying DRM (fair use!)). So yes, copyright seems to have had its purpose hijacked. If there's nothing "new" moving into the public domain every year then the system is broken, unless there was a dearth of new literature X years back. I'm a believer in making your own place in the world - inheriting copyright to harvest royalties from a literary work by your great-great-grandfather doesn't fit into that belief. And considering that 90% of literature (OK, that's my own made-up stat - be interested to see a real one) doesn't generate revenue for anyone after a few short years anyway...

Copyrights originally were for a very reasonable sixteen years, with the possibility of renewal for another sixteen if the author were still living. That's similar to the way patents work, which I believe are now for twenty years.

If patents worked like copyrights, you would find that motion pictures with sound, aerosol sprays, electric shavers, antibiotics, ballpoint pens and nylon would all still be legal monopolies.

Welcome to 1922! Welcome to 1922! Welcome to 1922! Welcome to 1922! Welcome to 1922!

In USA, if the work was copyrighted in 1932, it will be publicly available in 95 years (2027). So in 1998 instead of releasing copyrighted works of 1923, it just stayed at 1922.

The period between 1998 and 2018 is a period where no new works will enter the public domain automatically. Guess what guys, it's going to get worse. By 2015 or so the weight of our culture having missed 17 years of public domain works will hurt a lot.

Actually though, it's worse in the music field. Pre-1972 recordings weren't governed by copyright law, so the earliest they go into public domain is 2067.
Maybe our children or grandchildren will live to see the day that songs by Andrew Sisters or Bing Crosby fall into the public domain.

You may not realize this, but Time-warner owns some recordings by Thomas Alva Edison from the 19th century which won't go into the public domain until 2067.

For sources about music and copyright, this article (http://www.projectgramophone.org/TeleRead-Article-01Nov2003.html) and this one (http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub133/findings.html)