Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain Provides a Preview of What’s Entering the U.S. Public Domain on January 1, 2023

From a Blog Post (about 8400 words) by Jennifer Jenkins, Director, Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain:

On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. 1  They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These include Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis and Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and a novelty song about ice cream. Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different.

Here are just a few of the works that will be in the US public domain in 2023. 2  They were supposed to go into the public domain in 2003, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years. Now the wait is over. (To find more material from 1927, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.)

Books

• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
• Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
• Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
• Countee Cullen, Copper Sun
• A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, illustrations by E. H. Shepard
• Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
• Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women (collection of short stories)
• William Faulkner, Mosquitoes
• Agatha Christie, The Big Four

Learn More, Read the Complete Post by Jennifer Jenkins (approx. 8300 words)

Movies Entering the Public Domain

• Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang)
• The Jazz Singer (the first feature-length film with synchronized dialogue; directed by Alan Crosland)
• Wings (winner of the first Academy Award for outstanding picture; directed by William A. Wellman)

Musical Compositions

• The Best Things in Life Are Free (George Gard De Sylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson; from the musical Good News)
• (I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream (Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, Robert A. King)
• Puttin’ on the Ritz (Irving Berlin)
• Funny Face and ’S Wonderful (Ira and George Gershwin; from the musical Funny Face)
• Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man and Ol’ Man River (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern; from the musical Show Boat)
• Back Water Blues, Preaching the Blues, Foolish Man Blues (Bessie Smith)

Learn More, Read the Complete Post by Jennifer Jenkins (about 8400 words)

See Also: HathiTrust Provides Sneak of Peek of Public Domain Items Opening in January 2022 (December 15, 2022)

Filed under: Awards, News