January
1, 2023 marked the fifth
Public Domain Day in recent memory, and
the excitement has continued this year. In past posts, I have discussed the history of this day in
the U.S., some common public domain questions , and notable entrants into
the public domain.
On January 1 of this year, copyright-protected works from 1927 entered the
public domain in the United States, joining previous favorites such as the
first Winnie the Pooh book by A. A. Milne, hundreds of thousands of sound
recordings, and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
In
2023, the public domain expands to include works such as the last Sherlock
Holmes stories by Conan Doyle, the second Winnie the Pooh book by A. A. Milne,
and classics by Agatha Christie, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Franz
Kafka, Thornton Wilder, and Virginia Woolf. In 2023, the first “talkie” film The
Jazz Singer enters the public domain, as do film classics such as Metropolis.
Fans of early musicals and popular music will be glad to learn that
compositions such as Puttin’ on the Ritz, ‘S Wonderful, Ol’
Man River, and (I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream
are now in the public domain. As always, the caveat to this list is that only
the original work from 1927 is in the public domain. Later adaptations or uses
may still be copyright-protected – for example, a scholarly commentary on
Woolf’s writings, a translation of Kafka to English, a sound recording of Ol’
Man River, or a film adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, all may have their own
copyright protection that has not yet ended.
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