Happy Public Domain Day!
Each January 1st, a new set of works enters the Public Domain. 2023 has some pretty cool stuff. What follows is an explanation of what the public domain actually is, what are the parameters surrounding works entering the public domain, and finally, a list of some musical compositions that are now in the public domain. Back in 2008 Hal Leonard published my first full-length book titled The Music Educators Guide to Music, Media & Copyright Law. I have been fascinated with copyright law for a long time, and I think the book still stands up well today.
What is the Public Domain?
When works are copyrighted, the party that owns the copyright literally owns the right to copy the work. Of course there are more rights than that, and you can find those on the US Copyright Office website. These rights have time limits on them, though, and depending on when your work was copyrighted and how it was written, the current copyright law says:
Under the current law, works created on or after January 1, 1978, have a copyright term of life of the author plus seventy years after the author’s death. If the work is a joint work, the term lasts for seventy years after the last surviving author’s death. For works made for hire and anonymous or pseudonymous works, copyright protection is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
So what happens when that time period is over? The work enters the public domain which essentially means that it is no longer owned by anyone and that it can be freely used in any way. That means that any work written on or before December 31, 1927 is now in the public domain (as long as it wasn’t a work for hire or written/created anonymously). Many works that were written in 1928 will be in the public domain on January 1, 2024, and so on. But not all. A safe rule of thumb is that if it was published over 120 years ago, like the book The Wizard of Oz (© 1900) then it is definitely in the public domain.
So how do you know whether a work is in the public domain? The copyright owners like that question to be a mystery, but here is a very good place to start: PDInfo.com. Another fantastic site for searching for the owner(s) of a copyrighted musical composition is Songfile on Harry Fox. There is also a wonderful graphic flow chart from Belmont University that makes it pretty clear.
So what is in the public domain as of January 1, 2023? The law school at Duke University has published a fantastic site that answers this very question. Some musical highlights include:
(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream (Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, Robert A. King)
Puttin’ on the Ritz (Irving Berlin)
Funny Face and ’S Wonderful (Ira and George Gershwin; from the musical Funny Face)
Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man and Ol’ Man River (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern; from the musical Show Boat)
Back Water Blues, Preaching the Blues, Foolish Man Blues (Bessie Smith)
Potato Head Blues, Gully Low Blues (Louis Armstrong)
My Blue Heaven (George Whiting, Walter Donaldson)
One other more recent phenomenon in the world of the public domain is that audio recordings made in 1923 are now in the public domain as well. If you’d like to check out an amazing site by the Library of Congress that catalogues all of those sound recordings and makes them freely accessible to listen to, go visit the National Jukebox.
One of the most anticipated releases into the Public Domain is set to happen on January 1, 2024: Steamboat Willie - the earliest incarnation of one of the most iconic pieces of IP ever created - Mickey Mouse. We will see if it happens, as it is quite likely that Disney will do whatever it can to prevent that from happening - even though they have publicly acknowledged that it is on the horizon.
Anyway - Happy Public Domain Day 2023! I hope that you’ll review this with your students - in my experience they will find this subject matter fascinating!