Public domain in 2022!

[robcat2075]

Every Jan 1 a new collection of old works enter the public domain.

Jan 1 2022 is notable as, for the first time, old audio recordings prior to 1923 are included.

Recordings from the dawn of recorded sound were not covered by normal federal copyright protections with expiring terms but were covered by various state laws that gave them perpetual copyright. It was difficult to ever legally clear the permissions to old recordings.

That craziness has finally been swept aside by new legislation that PDs everything prior to 1923 and assigns 100 year expirations to recordings from 1923-1947

Recordings from 1923 become PD in 2024.


https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2022/

On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain, 1  where they will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues, and Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope. There are scores of silent films—including titles featuring Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo, famous Broadway songs, and well-known jazz standards. But that’s not all. In 2022 we get a bonus: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923  will be entering the public domain too! (Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different.)

[robcat2075]

Now PD: "Ory's Creole Trombone"...

https://www.archeophone.com/arsc-top-ten-nominees/#ory

You don't hear staccato like that much anymore even among players imitating that style.

[baileyman]

A tiny step in the right direction, but it leaves almost all of our popular culture enclosed by the fences of the landed gentry of intangible capital accumulators.

[Kbiggs]

A tiny step in the right direction, but it leaves almost all of our popular culture enclosed by the fences of the landed gentry of intangible capital accumulators.

“…when the ownership of the means of production [are in the hands of the few]…”

—Marx (Karl, not Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, or Zeppo)

[hyperbolica]

Musicians should be pro-copyright. Without it, you'd only ever get paid for live performances (no royalties on recordings), and you'd only ever have amateur compositions and arrangements to play. The alternative would be for the government to pay musicians, which seems obviously ridiculous to me. Who wants the government to determine culture?

People who create art have the right to protect what they create. Everyone is free to create art. Those who are good at it get rewarded. These days anyone can produce a recording. The tools are all free or cheap. I do agree there should be time limits on copyright, though.

[baileyman]

It might be better to want to be paid.

[robcat2075]

With hundred-year terms still the rule I don't sense there is any shortage of copyright duration.

The above linked page explains the case for copyrights having terms that expire...

...But when Congress extended the copyright term for works like The Sun Also Rises, it also did so for all of the works whose commercial viability had long subsided. For the vast majority—probably 99%—of works from 1926, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason. (A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are “orphan works,” where the copyright owner cannot be found at all.)

The works were not benefiting the original artists, they weren't benefiting a record company that ripped off the original artists... They weren't even benefiting some modern conglomerate that had swallowed the record company that ripped off the original artists.

[BGuttman]

This leads to one thing that hasn't really worked out with the extended copyright law. In the Bad Old Days you got a 28 year copyright and needed to actively extend it to get the remaining 28 years. Now the long extensions are automatic. This leaves lots of orphan works that are under copyright with no discernable copyright owner. If the law had been made with a 2 phase system -- a basic term plus an extension -- works with little value could easily be allowed to pass into Public Domain early while the valuable works could be extended. Mickey Mouse could remain under copyright while Atom Man (a superhero comic of the 1930s) could become Public Domain.

[harrisonreed]

I can tell you one thing that didn't come into the PD, even though some moron spent $3 million on buying a rare copy of it thinking they could make an anime out of it:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.c ... -dune-book

[AndrewMeronek]

Musicians should be pro-copyright.

I am. I am pro-copyright for the original artists, but not the lucky corporate conglomerate who gets control of some copyright in effective perpetuity, as long as they can continue to lobby for copyright extensions. Something which us "real" people can never achieve.

[robcat2075]

If copyright had been 100 years... a hundred years ago... there would be no Rochut's "Melodious Etudes"

[hyperbolica]

If copyright had been 100 years... a hundred years ago... there would be no Rochut's "Melodious Etudes"

Sure, there would be. You'd just have to share the profit. That's only fair. There's this misconception that you can't build off of copyrighted material. You definitely can. You just need permission, and to share the profit. When someone creates something worth publishing, it's only fair that you can't just steal it without giving credit and profit back to the originator.

Without copyright, corporate entities would make the route to publishing more difficult, and just gobble up all the good stuff that little guys write. I'm a book author. You can't get any thing physically printed in volume without 1) it costing you personally an arm and a leg or 2) signing 90% of it over to a publisher 3) and then the publisher in turn has to sign over 50% of that to Amazon. If you want to rail against something, rail against Amazon. It is difficult to make any money selling published works unless you go through Amazon (or another entity that tries to compete with Amazon).

Unless you are already famous, there is no motivation to try to publish something. For the books I wrote (books on technical software), you make in the range of ~$2/hr for writing and editing. The people that make the money are the publisher and Amazon. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You get a $10k advance to write a book that takes 6 months to write, and then 2 years of book sales to break even on the advance, and then a check for $500 every six months for a couple of years.

The big publishers used to be the biggest bullies on the block, but now there's an even bigger bully. Even though it is easier than ever for people to self-publish, it is even harder than ever to make any money doing it unless you go through the big bullies.

Unless your name is King, Rowling, Clinton or Cuomo, you write because you love to write or love your subject, not for the money.

[robcat2075]

Here's a list of music published in 1926

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_in_music

A lot of Tin-Pan Alley tunes, Gershwin songs, even classic marches are coming into PD.

You can sing "Baby Face" for free now!

[media]https://youtu.be/UmNRL1d_rNE?t=93[/media]

Sure, there would be. You'd just have to share the profit. That's only fair. There's this misconception that you can't build off of copyrighted material.

I understand what copyright and permissions do.

But when Joannes Rochut walks into Carl Fischer Inc. in 1928 and says, "I've got this great idea for a book that only trombone students will buy and you'll have to pay royalties for every 80-year-old Bordogni melody to Henry Litolff in Germany..."

... I don't think that book is going to happen. It's not economically viable with that built-in cost.

Amazon print-on-demand doesn't exist in 1928. It needs to have a price point that they can sell enough, even to that narrow market, to make back their set-up cost and more.

The completely legal and appropriate expiration of the copyright on those ancient Bordogni vocalises makes Rochut's compilation feasible.

[Dennis]

This leads to one thing that hasn't really worked out with the extended copyright law. In the Bad Old Days you got a 28 year copyright and needed to actively extend it to get the remaining 28 years. Now the long extensions are automatic. This leaves lots of orphan works that are under copyright with no discernable copyright owner. If the law had been made with a 2 phase system -- a basic term plus an extension -- works with little value could easily be allowed to pass into Public Domain early while the valuable works could be extended. Mickey Mouse could remain under copyright while Atom Man (a superhero comic of the 1930s) could become Public Domain.

The Mouse is never coming into the public domain so long as Disney exists as a corporate entity. I'd really prefer that Congress just pass a Mickey Mouse Copyright Act listing all of old Walt's IP and declare it off-limits in perpetuity but give us reasonable copyright terms on everything else.

[baileyman]

Perpetual copyright and patent is a good thing, right? I mean, just imagine if Thomas Crapper had been as talented on the subject as Bill Gates or Disney. Every porcelain fixture might have a coin-op on it, and his heirs could still be collecting the streams. Could've been the greatest fortune of all time.

[robcat2075]

I remain surprised that patent protection terms have not been the object of corporate lobbying and legislative extension that copyright terms have been.

US patent terms began at 14 years and, today, to be in alignment with international agreement are still only 20 years.

Blockbuster drugs that make billions for their developers still lose patent protection after only 20 years.

Drug Patent Expirations and the “Patent Cliff”

Drugs are granted 20 years of patent protection, although companies often do not get a product to market before as much as half of that period has already elapsed.

What would the music business be like if it took 10 years to get a rapper to market and it was PD in just 10 more?

Once a drug enters the market, however, patent protection can result in high profits, with gross profit margins exceeding 90%.

Once drugs lose patent protection, lower-price generics quickly siphon off as much as 90% of their sales. For consumers, the savings from generics can be substantial.

Between 2010 and 2012, drugs that make up 42% of Pfizer’s pharmaceutical revenue... will all have lost patent protection.

It might all be different if Disney had invented them but hugely profitable drugs like Viagra and Lipitor and Ambien are no longer under patent protection!

[afugate]

Perpetual copyright and patent is a good thing, right? I mean, just imagine if Thomas Crapper had been as talented on the subject as Bill Gates or Disney. Every porcelain fixture might have a coin-op on it, and his heirs could still be collecting the streams. Could've been the greatest fortune of all time.

Hah! I see what you did there! :facepalm:

--Andy in OKC

[baileyman]

[robcat2075]

Coming up in 2023...

Aint' She Sweet
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
The Best Things In Life Are Free
I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover
"Preludes" by George Gershwin
S'Wonderful

... and many more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1927_in_music