Editor’s note: This article is part of a series reviewing the history of Utah and the United States for the historical section of KSL.com.
SALT LAKE CITY – New Year’s Day is not only the beginning of 2021, it is the first day in which thousands and thousands of pieces of art, music and literature in the history of 1925 enter the world of the public domain.
If you are unfamiliar with the public domain, it is a collection of materials that no longer have copyright or intellectual property rights, which is now available to the public. All works – from songs to novels to inventions – eventually get there for future generations to rely on.
Duke University’s Center for Public Domain Studies explains this: you still have to buy a copy of Homer’s “Odyssey,” but you don’t have to go through legal circles to turn the ideas in it into new, modern pieces, like when the Coen brothers they used it to create the movie “A Brother Where Are You?” The most visible daily examples of the public domain can be found in stores when purchasing medicines and generic products.
The public domain can also give art pieces a second life. “It’s a wonderful life,” for example, entered the public domain in 1975 because it was a box office failure and the copyright owner chose not to extend the film’s copyright, the Center for Public Domain Studies said. Although his score and the short story he relied on were eventually kept copyrighted, it became a holiday classic because it was available for TV stations to run for free and the new audience seemed to like it.
Under current US law, all published materials have a validity period of 95 years in the United States before they enter this portal and become available to the public. This has not always been the case. For example, the artwork lasted a maximum of 56 years until 1978. This means that notable creative pieces such as “Mary Poppins”, “A Hard Day’s Night” by The Beatles and “The Giving Tree” – all released in 1964 – would could have been on this year’s list.
However, there are still some big names heading into the public domain. Here are 21 notable works heading into the public domain by 2021:
book
“An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser
- Special note: The modern library, founded in 1917, ranked it as the best novel no. 16 of all times.
“Arrow” by Sinclair Lewis
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Special Note: This is probably the most notable work heading into the public domain on Friday. More than 25 million copies of the American classic have been sold with annual sales of 500,000, according to Biblio. The modern library ranked it as the second best novel of all time, while Time Magazine ranked it 5th.
“The New Black: The Voices of the Harlem Renaissance” by Alain Lock
- Special Note: This is a collection of works, including writings from Countee Collen, WEB du Bois, Langston Hughes and more.
“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf
“In Our Time” by Ernest Hemingway
- Special Note: This marks the beginning of a wave of precious work by Hemingway heading into the public domain in the coming decades. Hemingway was 26 years old when a collection of short stories was published under the name “In Our Time.” His first novel, “Sunrise and the Sun,” will not be published until 1927. The novel will be added to the public domain every two years on Friday.
The “trial” by Franz Kafka
The music
“Always” by Irving Berlin
A collection from Duke Ellington, which includes “Jig Walk” and “With You”
A collection from “Jelly Roll” Morton, which includes “Shreveport Stomps” and “Milenberg Joys”
“Looking for a Boy” by George and Ira Gershwin
- Special Note: From the musical “Tip-Toes”
A collection from Ma Rainey, which includes “Army Camp Harmony Blues” and “Shave ‘Em Dry”
“Manhattan” by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers
“Sweet Georgia Brown” by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey
- Special Note: A 1949 version of this song is most commonly associated with the Harlem Globetrotters theme song.
movie
“The Freshman” with Harold Lloyd
“Go West” with Buster Keaton
“Quarantine Lovers” starring BeBe Daniels
- Special Note: This film is based on the 1924 play “Quarantine”.
“Happy Widow” starring John Gilbert, Mae Murray and Roy D’Arcy
“Pretty Ladies” starring ZaSu Pitts
“Stella Dallas” starring Ronald Colman and Belle Bennett
“The Unholy Three” with Lon Chaney and Victor McLaglen
- Special note: a remake of the film was released in 1930 as a “talkie”.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a list of several creative pieces that go to the public domain; can be found here.
Carter Williams