Public domain in the United States

[3] For example, if a creator were to die in 2002, their works' copyright would last through the end of 2072 and enter the public domain on January 1, 2073.

[4][5] In the United States, copyright at the federal level began when the Constitution, proposed in 1787, took effect on March 4, 1789.

From 1962 through 1974, Congress passed interim extensions that ultimately extended the total term to seventy years, but only for works dating from September 10, 1906 to the December 31, 1918.

Public-domain books within the United States include a number of popular titles, many of which are still commonly read and studied as part of the English-language literary canon.

As such, virtually all sound recordings, regardless of age, are presumed to remain under copyright protection in the United States.

Recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are still covered, to varying degrees, by common law or state statutes.

[12] On that date, all sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 will enter the public domain in the United States.

For sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, the earliest year that any will enter the public domain will be 2043,[14] and not in any substantial number until 2048.

Some examples include: A number of television series that were released before 1964 and without copyright renewal (such as nearly all of the extant DuMont Television Network archive), were originally recorded before 1989 without a valid copyright notice or are works of the United States government have episodes in the public domain.

Public-domain status of television episodes complicated by derivative-work considerations and disputes about what constitutes "publication" for legal purposes.

[23] Notable examples of such public-domain films include: Hundreds of American animated films are in the public domain, including: Congress has restored expired copyrights several times: "After World War I and after World War II, there were special amendments to the Copyright Act to permit for a limited time and under certain conditions the recapture of works that might have escaped into the public domain, principally by aliens of countries with which we had been at war.

[27] With the exception of maps, music, and movies, the vast majority of works published in the United States before 1964 were never renewed for a second copyright term.

[28] Works "prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties" are automatically in the public domain by law.

[29] Examples include military journalism, federal court opinions, congressional committee reports, and census data.

[32] On January 1, 2019, published works from 1923 entered the public domain under the Copyright Term Extension Act.

[33] Works from 1923 that have been identified as entering the public domain in this period include The Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie; The Great American Novel, by William Carlos Williams; the original silent version of the film The Ten Commandments, by Cecil B. DeMille; the hymn "Great Is Thy Faithfulness"; and the musical London Calling!, by Noël Coward.

For sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, the earliest year that any will enter the public domain in the U.S. will be 2043,[14] and not in any substantial number until 2048.

For example, all intellectual property rights relating to the sheet music and lyrics to Rhapsody in Blue expired in 2020, when all written works published in 1924 entered the public domain.

However, in 1993, Republic Pictures utilized the 1990 Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend to enforce its claim of copyright because the film was a derivative work of a short story that was under a separate, existing copyright, to which Republic owned the film adaptation rights, effectively regaining control of the work in its complete form.

[42] A number of TV series in America have lapsed into the public domain, in whole or only in the case of certain episodes, giving rise to wide distribution of some shows on DVD.

The first reference is actually in a statute passed by Congress, in the Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990 (Public Law 101–650, 104 Stat.

Although most of the Act was codified into Title 17 of the United States Code, there is a very interesting provision relating to "public domain shareware" which was not, and is therefore often overlooked.

Therefore, one reasonable inference is that Congress intended that authors of shareware would have the power to release their programs into the public domain.

Rather the language speaks about getting rid of copyright formalities in order to comply with Berne (non-compliance had become a severe impediment in trade negotiations) and making registration and marking optional, but encouraged.

This could make a distinction in a CyberPatrol-like case, where a software program is released, leading to litigation, and as part of a settlement the author assigns their copyright.

Either way, a fair reading is that an author may choose to release a computer program to the public domain if he can arrange for it to become popular and widely disseminated.