1924 U. S. Works Now in Public Domain Effective January 1, 2020

Standard Disclaimer:

I am not an attorney and any comments I post are not intended, nor should they be construed, as legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult a legal expert who is familiar with the area of legal expertise you need.

I somehow missed this update. Hopefully, the trend will continue as there are those who want to extend copyright even longer. Note: the above is for works published in the U. S. 1924 or earlier. If a work was never published as of January 1, 1978, it falls under the copyright changes that took place January 1, 1978 and any subsequent revisions that may affect copyright for a particular work.

Another key note if a work published before 1964 did not renew copyright, it’s in the public domain – Data-mining reveals that 80% of books published 1924-63 never had their copyrights renewed and are now in the public domain: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/01/80pct-pd.html. While 80% of books did not renew copyright, best to check as there are numerous sources to check if copyright was renewed. From the above link, here are some good sources to check:

For many years, the Internet Archive has hosted an archive of registration records, which were partially machine-readable.

Enter the New York Public Library, which employed a group of people to encode all these records in XML, making them amenable to automated data-mining.

Now, Leonard Richardson (previously) has done the magic data-mining work to affirmatively determine which of the 1924-63 books are in the public domain, which turns out to be 80% of those books; what’s more, many of these books have already been scanned by the Hathi Trust (which uses a limitation in copyright to scan university library holdings for use by educational institutions, regardless of copyright status).

Here are several articles on the subject about 1924 now being in the public domain:

Welcome to 1924!: https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2020/01/06/welcome-to-1924/

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Welcome to 1924!,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 6 Jan 2020).

Column: ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (1924) just reached the public domain, showing the insanity of U.S. copyright law [Los Angeles Times]: https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/wires/column-rhapsody-in-blue-1924-just-reached-the-public-domain-showing-the-insanity-of-u-s-copyright-law-los-angeles-times/

Here are the books that just entered the public domain.: https://lithub.com/here-are-the-books-that-just-entered-the-public-domain/

Happy Public Domain Day 2020!!: https://durnmoosemovies.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/happy-public-domain-day-2020/

Happy Public Domain Day 2020!!: https://durnmoosemovies.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/happy-public-domain-day-2020/

Center for the Study of Public Domain: Public Domain Day 2020: https://rbfirehose.com/2020/01/02/center-for-the-study-of-public-domain-public-domain-day-2020/