It sucks that the copyright period in the US is so ridiculously long, but it still makes me happy to see stuff finally entering the public domain again.
I don't care much about Betty Boop and I don't really care about Pluto and Mickey all that much, but I'm very excited for The Maltese Falcon's novel being available, since I think that that one could actually be adapted into something pretty modern.
Also, All Quiet on the Western Front is very arguably one of the very best movies ever made, and certainly one of the very best of the 30's if nothing else, so I am very much looking forward to fan restorations.
I've always been curious about what it means for a movie to enter the public domain. A few years ago I sent a mail to Planet Money in what I thought would be an interesting hook but never got a response:
"Hi Planet Money, today is public domain day. I see that Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis is now in the "public domain." I was curious what that meant at a practical level for a German language silent film.
If Planet Money Movies wanted to release their own version of Metropolis, how would they do it? Can you just go to Amazon, buy the Blu Ray, and somehow release your own? What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray? What about the work that Transit Film did in restoring the film from the original negative? Does that count as some sort of newly original work? It's a silent film and a foreign film. How does the soundtrack and translation work?
If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?"
> If Planet Money Movies wanted to release their own version of Metropolis, how would they do it? Can you just go to Amazon, buy the Blu Ray, and somehow release your own?
Yes.
For example, wikipedia has a copy of Metrpolis and that's basically what happened
>What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray?
In the US, bypassing DRM is a crime even if the intended use is legal. There are exceptions for things like criticism and accessibility, but I don't believe they'd be relevant.
Maybe it'd be as simple as selling your new copies as "for review purposes" and it'd be legal, I'm not sure.
A work being in the public domain just means that if somebody claims that they have the copyright and sue you for distributing that work, you will prevail in court.
Restoration itself does not grant a new copyright. Other elements included in a restoration may be copyrighted e.g. new music or the graphic design of intertitles. A new translation is also copyrightable; essentially it's only the "original elements" that enter the public domain. Working around the anti-piracy measures of a blu-ray might be a crime, idk, but that's irrelevant to the copyright discussion; once you have a copy even if it came from an 'illicit' source, you're free to copy & distribute as you wish.
But yes, you need to acquire a copy first; if you can't find a work at all, how would you copy it, practically?
Amazon Prime Video in fact has multiple low-quality versions of some films that have accidentally found their way into the public domain due to negligence of rightsholders, like John Wayne's McLintock!
Since it is the holiday season, reminds me of "It’s a Wonderful Life", which everyone thought was in the public domain, and it became a christmas tradition because it was all over the place. Well, eventually they dug up a copyright on some of the soundtrack.
> If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?"
This part at least, yes. A work being in the public domain doesn't mean someone is obligated to help you redistribute it.
The article mentions that Charlie (Bird) Parker's music is now public domain in most of the world (life + 70 years), but most of his records are collaborations with other artists like Dizzy Gillespie who died much later, less than 50 years ago. I also wonder if that even matters if the records are owned by corporations.
In those cases, how would I know if a record is public domain or not?
Sort of like how the movie Charade staring Carry Grant and Audrey Hepburn is public domain (due to failure to file back when that was required in the 1970's) but the soundtrack is not. So the music is in the pubic domain only when played in the movie but played separately the music is still protected.
The records themselves are likely still copyrighted due to the collaborations, but you are free to record your own performance of the songs on said records.
You don't. It's all nonsense so unless you are planning on doing something official with the material just pirate it. Copyright went far beyond lunacy decades ago and should be ignored if possible.
I wonder why should Tesla , who wanted to give us free electricity lost all his patents (time ran out in those times) while he was still living. And these rent seeking entities get to keep their copyrights for far too long. Are they more important than Nikola Tesla?
Someone would retort that patent is not same as copyright. But really dude that's all just made up stuff by politicians and corporations.
In the end Tesla died pennyless and these corporations and entities get to hoard all the human creativity till what it looks like an eternity for my meagre life span.
> The nation becomes enslaved to the Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called DAVAMESK B 2 which takes away their abilities to think and to mentally resist.
Interesting. That's quite a bit before 1984 was written.
> I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off?
I've always been a fan of this, but here's a great detraction:
> I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had middling success. It was only after 2011 that the series exploded in popularity. Good Omens main peak was ~15 years after release. Hell, some books like Handmaiden's Tale were published in 1985 but only reached their peak in 2010. IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent.
This is a very solid point. Works sometimes only become popular decades after their initial release.
Perhaps a way to protect individual artists would be to limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity. The more you aggregate or hold on to, the steeper the cost to maintain the copyright. I'm sure loopholes like "we're a holding company of holding companies" might be invented to counter this, but if we tied this to real people rather than corporations it might work.
I don't care much about Betty Boop and I don't really care about Pluto and Mickey all that much, but I'm very excited for The Maltese Falcon's novel being available, since I think that that one could actually be adapted into something pretty modern.
Also, All Quiet on the Western Front is very arguably one of the very best movies ever made, and certainly one of the very best of the 30's if nothing else, so I am very much looking forward to fan restorations.
"Hi Planet Money, today is public domain day. I see that Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis is now in the "public domain." I was curious what that meant at a practical level for a German language silent film.
If Planet Money Movies wanted to release their own version of Metropolis, how would they do it? Can you just go to Amazon, buy the Blu Ray, and somehow release your own? What about the anti-piracy measures on the Blu Ray? What about the work that Transit Film did in restoring the film from the original negative? Does that count as some sort of newly original work? It's a silent film and a foreign film. How does the soundtrack and translation work?
If you have to make a new copy from the original reels, what if someone is hoarding them? Does that mean you could buy all the copies and prevent someone from releasing a public domain version?"
Yes.
For example, wikipedia has a copy of Metrpolis and that's basically what happened
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metropolis_(1927).webm
In the US, bypassing DRM is a crime even if the intended use is legal. There are exceptions for things like criticism and accessibility, but I don't believe they'd be relevant.
Maybe it'd be as simple as selling your new copies as "for review purposes" and it'd be legal, I'm not sure.
Restoration itself does not grant a new copyright. Other elements included in a restoration may be copyrighted e.g. new music or the graphic design of intertitles. A new translation is also copyrightable; essentially it's only the "original elements" that enter the public domain. Working around the anti-piracy measures of a blu-ray might be a crime, idk, but that's irrelevant to the copyright discussion; once you have a copy even if it came from an 'illicit' source, you're free to copy & distribute as you wish.
But yes, you need to acquire a copy first; if you can't find a work at all, how would you copy it, practically?
This part at least, yes. A work being in the public domain doesn't mean someone is obligated to help you redistribute it.
The article mentions that Charlie (Bird) Parker's music is now public domain in most of the world (life + 70 years), but most of his records are collaborations with other artists like Dizzy Gillespie who died much later, less than 50 years ago. I also wonder if that even matters if the records are owned by corporations.
In those cases, how would I know if a record is public domain or not?
Someone would retort that patent is not same as copyright. But really dude that's all just made up stuff by politicians and corporations. In the end Tesla died pennyless and these corporations and entities get to hoard all the human creativity till what it looks like an eternity for my meagre life span.
For example commercial 3D printing (using FDM) was likely significantly stalled until the relevant patent expired.
Culture is of course important but there can always be new successful Alternatives.
> The nation becomes enslaved to the Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called DAVAMESK B 2 which takes away their abilities to think and to mentally resist.
Interesting. That's quite a bit before 1984 was written.
https://reason.com/2026/01/01/betty-boop-enters-the-public-d...
Just like with "Steamboat Willie" Mickey, it's only the very first iteration of the character.
What will enter the public domain in 2026?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117112
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118808
> I love the original 14+14. I’ve heard proposals for exponentially growing fees to allow truly big enterprises to stay copywritten longer, like 14+14 with filing and $100, another 14 for $100,000, another 14 for $10M, another 14 for $100M. That would allow 70 years or protection for a few key pieces of IP that are worth it, which seems like an okay trade off?
I've always been a fan of this, but here's a great detraction:
> I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had middling success. It was only after 2011 that the series exploded in popularity. Good Omens main peak was ~15 years after release. Hell, some books like Handmaiden's Tale were published in 1985 but only reached their peak in 2010. IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent.
This is a very solid point. Works sometimes only become popular decades after their initial release.
Perhaps a way to protect individual artists would be to limit the number of copyrights held by a particular entity. The more you aggregate or hold on to, the steeper the cost to maintain the copyright. I'm sure loopholes like "we're a holding company of holding companies" might be invented to counter this, but if we tied this to real people rather than corporations it might work.
Copyrights shouldn't last longer than humans.