The fundamental problem in the US is the huge political lobbying clout of Disney. They started business in 1923, so, you see, if anything more enters the US public domain it will include a certain mouse which Display are keen to keep as their property. Consequently, whenever US copyright terms are in danger of expiring (and the current date is 2019), they "persuade" Congress to extend it for another 20 years or so.
So, while in the rest of the world, new books enter the public domain on 1st Jan each year (eg here in the UK we've just added to the public domain all the works by authors who died during 1940), the US is stuck with a 1923 cutoff date for the public domain, and it looks set to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
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