Celebrating Public Domain Day

January 1 is Public Domain Day for works still under copyright that were first released in 2028:

Public Domain Day 2024

The article includes selected lists of books, plays, films, and musical compositions being liberated, so to speak, in 2024. It also explains some of the intricacies of copyright law and explores the question, "Why Celebrate the Public Domain?"

Most famously, of course, the earliest version of Mickey and Minnie Mouse becomes available for public reproduction and reinterpretation in 2024 (with some qualifications and caveats -- trademark, for instance, has a longer and more tenacious life than copyright):

Mickey Mouse Will Soon Belong to You and Me

As an unintended side effect of what this essay labels "overlong" copyright protection under U.S. law, "many properties with less pedigree than Winnie [the Pooh] or Minnie can disappear or be forgotten with their copyrights murky." As Cory Doctorow is quoted as saying, the remarkable 95-year endurance of some classic works "makes you think about the stuff that we must have lost, that would still have currency," or might have, if that material had been freely available for reproduction and distribution.

As the first article cited above puts it, "Most older works are 'orphan works,' where the copyright owner cannot be found at all. Now that these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available to the public. This enables access to our cultural heritage -- access to materials that might otherwise be forgotten. 1928 was a long time ago and the vast majority of works from 1928 are not commercially available. You couldn’t buy them, or even find them, if you wanted. When they enter the public domain in 2024, anyone can rescue them from obscurity and make them available, where we can all discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them."

Having had the experience of editing two paperback fiction anthologies in the early 1970s, I've often mentally grumbled about the problems inherent in the "life of author plus seventy years" rule that reigned for several decades. An editor who wanted to "rescue" an undeservedly neglected story from obscurity would have to find out whether copyright was renewed under the older system, when the author died, and who holds reprint rights -- if they're still in force -- in the present. For a very old, little-known work, the latter information might be almost impossible to discover, as the above quote mentions. Nobody benefits from continuation of the copyright, and readers who might enjoy the story and appreciate the long-dead writer's creation are deprived of that opportunity.

As Cory Doctorow, again, says in an essay on the Medium site, "First in 1976, and then again in 1998, Congress retroactively extended copyright’s duration by 20 years, for all works, including works whose authors were unknown and long dead, whose proper successors could not be located. Many of these authors were permanently erased from history as every known copy of their works disappeared before they could be brought back into our culture through reproduction, adaptation and re-use."

Public Domain Is a Banger

His characterization of this process as "slow-motion arson" might be a bit extreme, but he makes a point well worth considering.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

The Joys of Derivative Works

I've just finished rereading THE HOLLOW PLACES, by T. Kingfisher, inspired by Algernon Blackwood's classic tale of cosmic horror, "The Willows." Her earlier book THE TWISTED ONES is a modern-day follow-up to Arthur Machen's deeply unsettling "The White People." I consider THE TWISTED ONES one of the best horror novels I've read in many a year, not excluding Stephen King's recent works. Readers don't have to know the classic stories to enjoy these two novels, but familiarity with their sources enhances the experience. Another recent read, THE HUMMING ROOM, by Ellen Potter, retells THE SECRET GARDEN on an island in the St. Lawrence River in the present day, with other variations. Again, it could stand alone with no knowledge of its model required.

On the other end of the sliding scale of derivative works we find oddities such as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, which embellishes the classic novel but makes few significant changes other than the insertion of zombies. This type of playing with texts enjoyed a fad after the success of that book. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS (by a different author) is more transformative, as are LITTLE WOMEN AND WEREWOLVES and LITTLE VAMPIRE WOMEN (each being exactly what it sounds like). WUTHERING BITES adheres pretty closely to WUTHERING HEIGHTS while taking the obvious step of making Heathcliff a vampire; in the original he's even referred to as one, metaphorically.

Most spinoffs from previous works, of course, are far more transformative to varying degrees. PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS, by John Kessel, introduces Mary Bennet, the bookish sister in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, to Victor Frankenstein and his creature. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE also inspired a mystery series, at least one portrayal of Darcy as a vampire, and a non-fantastic exploration of Mary's life, THE OTHER BENNET SISTER, by Janice Hadlow. Sequels, prequels, retellings, and side stories to fill gaps in the originals have been written for many classic works. For instance, there's a novel revealing where Heathcliff went during his absence from Wuthering Heights and how he made his fortune. FIVE CHILDREN ON THE WESTERN FRONT is a follow-up to E. Nesbit's FIVE CHILDREN AND IT (and its two sequels) set during World War I. THE WIDE SARGASSO SEA creates a backstory for the mad wife in JANE EYRE. SCARLETT offers an authorized sequel to GONE WITH THE WIND, while THE WIND DONE GONE and RHETT BUTLER'S PEOPLE tell stories parallel to GWTW from viewpoints very different from Scarlett's. John Gardner's GRENDEL gives a voice to the monster in BEOWULF, while Maria Dahvana Headley's THE MERE WIFE translates that epic into contemporary terms. Readers can enjoy the latter without knowing BEOWULF, but they'd need some acquaintance with the original to appreciate GRENDEL. In the decades since DRACULA fell into the public domain, innumerable such books have been published, including two starring Renfield (that I know of) and two novels on the backstories of Dracula's brides by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (a third was planned but never published). Sherlock Holmes and Peter Pan have enjoyed similar treatment. Marion Zimmer Bradley's MISTS OF AVALON is only one of countless retellings and revisions of the Arthurian legendarium.

Critics who look down on such fiction as "unoriginal" have tenuous ground to stand on. The plots of most of Shakespeare's plays weren't original with him, but were based on history, legend, or prior literary works. "Originality" in the modern sense wasn't highly valued in the realm of literature until relatively recently. Authors who did invent their own stories were likely to make up fabricated sources for them to give them a veneer of respectable antiquity.

One major distinguishing feature of fan fiction is that the reader needs familiarity with the source material to appreciate original stories derived from it; that's true of some professionally published derivative works but by no means all (Kingfisher's horror novels, for example). Why is fan fiction disdained when it does the same kinds of things as the commercially published fiction mentioned above? I've read stories in the universes of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, FOREVER KNIGHT, and STAR TREK that I consider equal or superior to any of the aired episodes. The only consistent reason for the higher respect granted to the non-fanfic works seems to be their commercial status—which goes along with their legal status, but fanfic based on public domain sources doesn't typically get respect outside its own community, either.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Nuts

If you wish to read about testicles, this is not the venue. At least, not this day. Nor do I intend to discuss a staple of the vegan diet.

This is about copyright-related news that does not make sense.

Yesterday, on a very prestigious forum for authors, in a thread about ebook piracy, one correspondent opined, "It's just downloading..."

In fact, it is the downloading that creates multiple, perfect, illegal copies.

Meanwhile, on one of the most-watched financial channels, a panel was discussing Artificial Intelligence, and the scraping of social media sites for privately-taken and also commercially-taken photographs for commercial exploitation and facial recognition technology.

The one aspect that the anchor and panelists never mentioned at all was the massive copyright infringement.
Anyone who takes a photograph owns the copyright to that photograph. If you post a selfie, you do not automatically grant Clearview AI or anyone else a license to sell your face to the fuzz.

Sputnik news has the scoop:
https://sputniknews.com/science/202002061078248616-facebook-demands-facial-recognition-startup-stop-scraping-images-from-platform-/

Even that very informative article glosses over a very important term: "publicly available".
https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/publicly-available

There is a difference between something being available to view, and available to copy and re-publish and distribute.

Another nutty misunderstanding that is prevalent among pirates is of "public domain".
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public-domain

Just because someone uploaded an illegal copy of a novel to a website does not mean that that novel is lawfully in the public domain.  Not if the author is still alive, or deceased within the last 70 years.

Likewise, those who are curious about their ancestors and long lost relatives do not necessarily intend to donate to a government DNA database. If Heritage/Ancestry/ 23&Me keeps pestering you to give permission for your DNA to be used for "research", do not agree. They've probably already sold your DNA is a job lot and are trying to clean up their bases.

If you gave a spit, you'd better keep a diary, and have an alibi for every hour of every day and night!

Allegedly, Amazon is getting in on the use of  faked or fake people to avoid having to pay royalties to real people.  If one is famous --or merely attractive and popular-- and they have multiple views of your face and tracks of your voice, there's no limit to the liberties "they" can take.

Chris Castle writes:
https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/02/07/the-singularity-is-nigh-amazon-fake-brand-personality-follows-chinas-fake-news-presenter-with-us-right-of-publicity-infringement/

Also Amazon-related, there was one rare victory this last week against the inexorable incursions of Amazon and AI on authors' rights was that of the Association of American Publishers against Audible Captions.
https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/02/copyright-coup-as-association-american-publishers-succeeds-in-audible-captions-case/

Copyrighting anything including one's photographs is not as expensive as one might imagine. Wiki How explains the steps:
https://www.wikihow.com/Copyright-Photographs

Copyright.gov has the fee schedule in effect from 2014, (and one can copyright a batch of photographs for one fee.)
https://www.copyright.gov/about/fees.html

Act quickly. Copyright registration costs are likely to rise by more than 20% this coming Spring 2020. Except for batches of photographs. No increase is proposed for that.
https://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/feestudy2018/proposed-fee-schedule.pdf

Finally, the Copyright Alliance.org is asking (again) for action to encourage Oregon Senator #JustOne Ron Wyden to stop his opposition to anything that might improve copyright protections for authors, musicians and other creators.

https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/why-is-senator-wyden-the-only-obstacle-standing-between-americas-creators-and-justice/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=bOTw1

One of his felon-friendly* rationales for blocking the #CASEAct is that mere downloaders ought not to face any disincentive for "stealing" or "sharing" copyrighted content that the creators rely on to pay their bills #MySkillsPayBills.

Apparently, @RonWyden would also like to change Fair Use from a defense for defendants to a negative proposition --i.e. that the infringement was not fair use-- to be proven by the plaintiffs.

That's just nuts!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

*PS....copyright infringement is not a felony. 

Copyright Conundrum

One of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis, published many books of essays over the long span of his career. A few of the early volumes have been allowed to go out of print. Aside from fabulously overpriced used copies, they can be found only in libraries—and not many of those. The copies I was able to read came through inter-library loan from the one library in Maryland that accumulates and retains a huge collection of older books that most public libraries tend to cull (for lack of space, I know, but the practice still pains me to contemplate). Many of the essays in those volumes have been included in more recent collections released by the Lewis estate, but not all. I made photocopies of the otherwise unavailable items I wanted to keep and reread, for my own private use.

Thinking about those "lost" Lewis books recently, I've been contemplating a hypothetical ethical question about out-of-print works. Consider a deceased author whose writings are old enough that some have lapsed out of copyright, even though most are still under copyright and being published by his estate. (I don't know whether any early Lewis works are in fact old enough to be in the public domain; he just happens to be the author who started me thinking about this situation.) Suppose those out-of-print, public domain works are hard to find and impossible to buy at any reasonable price. Suppose a devoted reader scanned those books, articles, or stories and made them available online for free. (Not that I plan to do any such thing; it would be way too much work!) Obviously it would be wrong, even if technically legal, for an individual fan to charge money for them. A reputable publisher might offer such works for sale with editorial material for added value, but I would hope such a publisher would notify the estate of its intention as a courtesy, at least, even if not required to under law.

Now, it seems clear that scanning and distributing such works would be legal, because in this hypothetical example they're in the public domain. My imagined reader doesn't make any changes in the text and certainly doesn't claim the writings as his or her own. This person's sole motive is to make "lost" works available to other fans. Would this activity be ethically permissible? I believe it would. Not only is it legal, the author's estate has effectively abandoned the books. Having not reprinted them since their release in the 1920s or before (which would have to be the publication date for the material to be in the public domain), it clearly has no intention of ever doing so. The hypothetical scanner and distributor would be performing a service for other fans who want to read those "abandoned" writings.

This seems to me at least as ethically okay as publishing books such as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, which add extra material to the largely unchanged text of a classic novel while making no claim to ownership of the original work. Any thoughts on my hypothetical scenario?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Science, Fiction and the Public Domain (comma intended)

If one includes Vampires and The Occult as "science fiction", I count 5 instances this week where "Sellers" on EBay have mistakenly announced that multiple works of science fiction are "in the public domain" and that therefore they (the sellers) assert that they either own the copyright or have the legal right to flog these e-book collections on CDs.

Example

Not so!

Another example

Please note the small print "NOTE TO EBAY".

These two examples of EBay listings are themselves works of fiction. Please note, it is quite possible that the Sellers honestly do not understand the words they are using. My rant is against ignorance and disinformation.

The so-called "freely distributable" eBooks are in fact snagged from well known file-sharing sites. They are not "in the public domain".

The fact that some ignorant/unscrupulous/malicious/greedy person has upped copyright-protected works to a file-sharing site, and is "sharing" them with the general public does NOT put the works into the public domain.

The works are only "freely distributable" because technology makes it possible for the works to be distributed easily by copyright infringers. That does not mean that it is legal to distribute them, copy them, "share" them, encourage others to "share" them, or to sell them.

I apologize for posting two weeks in a row about copyright infringement. Authors of all genres ought to be aware of what is going on, but most of all, of the damage being done owing to the apparently widespread ignorance or disregard for what "the public domain" means.

There is a natural perception that "If 1,000 EBayers are doing it, it must be legal", which is really difficult to combat, especially when the EBay feedback system touts alleged mega-copyright infringers (who might be illegally sharing multiple copies of 8,000 or more copyrighted works per auction) as 100% positive.

The problem may be even worse on other auction sites, depending upon one's focus. Mine is on what happens when people are told that e-books are in the public domain, when they are not.