So now we've enter 2024 and aside from the possible hangover you might have, New Year's Day brings another fun thing with it again: new works have entered the public domain for free use! There's already a number of other articles listing what is coming in this year (the big one is the original Mickey Mouse but I'm more interested in seeing what happens with Virginia Woolf's Orlando or remixes of Django Reinhardt) but let's cover some other articles and media that go in-depth on why the public domain is such a cool concept and how it should be more appreciated.
What'd you expect with all of those cats?! (from Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats, now in the public domain today)
Some basic information about public domain
Like with anything else, sometimes the best introductions we've got to a subject can be found through the magical online portal world of Wikipedia. According to the page on public domain itself, it essentially refers to "all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply." This is generally due to lapses in copyrights but sometimes the owners of the work will release or forfeit their copyright and allow it to be free to use by anyone else who chooses to do so in whatever fashion they deem fit. Of course, as with anything dealing with copyright law, there's more complicated issues involved but this is the best way I can think of for describing what's happening.
For why this is important, the Wikipedia article lists out a series of values established by legal scholar Pamela Samuelson that does a better job emphasizing than I could:
Building blocks for the creation of new knowledge, examples include data, facts, ideas, theories, and scientific principle.
Access to cultural heritage through information resources such as ancient Greek texts and Mozart's symphonies.
Promoting education, through the spread of information, ideas, and scientific principles.
Enabling follow-on innovation, through for example expired patents and copyright.
Enabling low cost access to information without the need to locate the owner or negotiate rights clearance and pay royalties, through for example expired copyrighted works or patents, and non-original data compilation.
Promoting public health and safety, through information and scientific principles.
Promoting the democratic process and values, through news, laws, regulation, and judicial opinion.
Enabling competitive imitation, through for example expired patents and copyright, or publicly disclosed technologies that do not qualify for patent protection.
Since copyright laws differ from country to country, there's several different "rules of thumb" that apply when determining when a work will be open to public domain use. The most common of these rules is based on the length of copyright during a creator's lifetime plus a set amount of years after their death. How long is determined by each country, but then you also have some that don't follow that general idea. The most prominent example of this is (of course...) here in the United States. Thanks to a whole bunch of Disney-enforced shenanigans, ours is generally based on the work's year of creation determining when the copyright expires (because Mickey Mouse is that important, I guess...).
Public Domain Day as a concept
Thanks to the House of Mouse effectively putting a lock on how culture gets used and re-used, some people were obviously annoyed/upset about a corporation pushing its weight around to milk more money out a really old property. Since this happened in those glorious GeoCities days of the late 90s internet, it was pretty clear that something was going to happen to cause a small group of tech-savvy nerds to come together and make a statement about it. A result of those grumblings became the rough creation of Public Domain Day, celebrated every New Year's Day to showcase all of the new works of art that become available for public consumption and fair use without companies being able to take anyone to court for copyright infringement. There's even actual in-person celebrations around the world to commemorate these works finally being available to everyone.
What's going into public domain this year (2024)
There's already a number of other articles covering what's coming in this year but for a small taster, here are some of the biggies for the United States:
Steamboat Willie (the Mickey Mouse cartoon that Disney started this whole mess over)
Virginia Woolf's Orlando
D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover
A.A. Milne's House at Pooh Corner (Winnie the Pooh entered last year but now Tigger can be fair use)
Carl Theodor Dryer's The Passion of Joan of Arc
Some of the works of MC Escher
This barely scratches the full list, though, and I'd highly recommend the following articles if you'd like to figure what all is now available:
Finally, hyperlinked in the above heading is the Public Domain Manifesto. While a lot of strides have been made in making cultural works available to the public and allowing them to breath new life, there's still a lot of fuzziness and uncertainty surrounding the issue. In the total overview of problems facing the world right now (like various destructive wars and the looming threat of authoritarianism all over the place), copyright law's pretty freaking minor. Yet it's still important that culture's not just locked away for a few people to dictate what can be done with it (a good example from 2023 is the whole tax write-off mess at Warner Bros. Discovery).
With that in mind, there's a manifesto roaming around that does a great job outlining why keeping culture free is important and steps to take so it remains free. Even if you don't sign the petition, it's an excellent read and well worth the time to delve into it on Public Domain Day 2024.