Large Number of Works Set to Enter the Public Domain in 2019
An interesting article by The Atlantic highlights the large number of classic works that are set to enter the public domain on January 1, 2019. Hundreds of thousands of works, including old classics such as Noël Coward’s London Calling! musical and Charlie Chaplin’s film The Pilgrim, which were first published in 1923, are set to have their applicable copyright term expire. This is a result of patchwork amendments to the Copyright Act, which retroactively extended copyright protection and, in particular, the Sonny Bono Act of 1998, which fixed a copyright term of 95 years (up from the prior extension of 75 years) to any work published between 1923 to 1977.
