Public Domain Day 2013

Hello January 1, 2013 - the start of another year, and the start of new life for cultural works whose copyright expired at midnight. Yes, it's Public Domain Day!

Copyrights in millions of written, artistic, and musical works of the human mind and imagination are now part of the common cultural property in the countries where the general copyright term subsists for the life of the creator (or last-surviving of multiple creators), for X years after their death, and to the end of that year.

Written works do not just include literature; they include written works in the humanities and social sciences, pure and applied sciences, biography and memoir, mathematics, and all fields and all languages. They join the artistic and musical works which have passed into the public domain in Canada and elsewhere in the life+50 copyright universe. The magic number for 2013 is 1962. Authors or other creators who died in that year see their works pass into the life+50 public domain today.

Some of the more prominent or interesting transitions to the life+50 public domain today include life+ works by:

• Canadian Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson
• Danish physicist Niels Bohr
• Canada's first female Senator, Cairine Wilson
• Nobel prize winning American author William Faulkner ("The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom!")
• Danish author Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) ("Out of Africa", "Babette's Feast")
• British poet Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• American screenwriter Carey Wilson ("Ben-Hur", "Mutiny on the Bounty")
• English writer Vita Sackville-West
• American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
• German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse ("Steppenwolf", "Siddharta")
• American cooking writer Irma S. Rombauer ("The Joy of Cooking")
• American poet e. e. cummings
• Austrian children's author Ludwig Bemelmans ("Madeline")
• American writer Fran Striker ("Lone Ranger" and "Green Hornet" creator)
• French writer Gontran de Poncins ("Kabloona")
• American juvenile science writer W. Maxwell Reed ("The Sea for Sam")
• American comic-book artist Lt. Dick Calkins ("Buck Rogers")
• Hungarian-American film director Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca")
• Yiddish-language writer H. Leivick ("The Golem")
• American anthropologist and archaeologist William Duncan Strong
• Newfoundland anti-confederate politician Chesley Crosbie

And many, many more (see fuller list below.)

In the European Union and some other countries, copyright has unwisely been extended to the longer "life+70" term. In such countries, the magic number is 1942. Transitioning to the life+70 public domain are works by authors including:

• Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery
• British barrister and politician William Mackenzie, 1st Baron Amulree
• German ethnologist Franz Boas
• English egyptologist Flinders Petrie
• American songwriter George M. Cohan ("Give My Regards to Broadway", "You're a Grand Old Flag")
• Canadian biographer and historian Beckles Willson
• Polish-born anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski ("Argonauts of the Western Pacific")
• Austrian writer Robert Musil
• German playwright Carl Sternheim
• American sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
• Irish writer Peadar Toner Mac Fhionnlaoich (Cú Uladh)
• Austrian writer Stefan Zweig
• American artist Grant Wood ("American Gothic")
• British explorer and writer Francis Younghusband
• British physicist and Nobel laureate Sir William Henry Bragg
• French historian Alfred Coville
• French physicist and Nobel laureate Jean Baptiste Perrin
• Canadian politician J. S. Woodsworth

And many, many more.

In the United States, previously unpublished works by authors who died in 1942 also became public domain this morning. Not so in Canada, where not a single additional unpublished archival letter or manuscript whose author died after 1948 will become public domain until 2049. So, while the published works of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Cairine Wilson, and Chesley Crosbie are now unfettered under Canadian law, their unpublished papers are not.

Whichever of the copyright universes you live in, celebrate, enjoy, and re-use the works which have become common cultural property in your country. Short live copyright, and long live the public domain!

SOME OTHER AUTHORS WHOSE WORKS ARE NOW IN THE LIFE+50 PUBLIC DOMAIN

Czech artist Max Švabinský
German art historian Paul Frankl
Chilean writer Antonio Acevedo Hernández
English illustrator Thomas Henry
Swiss historian and author Edmond Privat
French sculptor André Lhote
Estonian author Paul Viiding
German mathematician Wilhelm Ackermann
American astronomer A. E. Douglass
German artist Harold Bengen
English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton
English writer Richard Aldington
Norwegian writer Inge Krokann
American writer and historian Harold Lamb
American writer William Lindsay Gresham
German zoologist Ernst Schwarz
New Zealand botanist G. H. Cunningham
Swiss author and academic Pierre Gilliard
English writer Winifred Peck
German-American illustrator Anton Otto Fischer
American author Bernie Babcock
American philosopher Arthur Oncken Lovejoy
German-American writer George Sylvester Viereck
American entomologist R.E. Snodgrass
British explorer and ornithologist Robert Ernest Cheesman
Belgian mathematician Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin
American zoologist Albert William Herre
French intellectual Georges Bataille
Welsh historian Thomas Richards
American madam and author Polly Adler
Irish author Frank Gallagher
American author Burton Egbert Stevenson
Indian author Tripuraneni Gopichand
Canadian alpinist Sir Edward Oliver Wheeler
American writer Edward Lewis Wallant
English poet Ralph Hodgson
German author Will Vesper
British historian G. M. Trevelyan
French novelist Pierre Benoît
English botanist Arthur Disbrowe Cotton
American poet Robinson Jeffers
Australian writer Bill Harney
Austrian-born composer Fritz Kreisler
Brazilian artist Candido Portinari
Czech writer Jaroslav Durych
German botanist Werner Rothmaler
American children's writer Howard R. Garis
Russian writer Leonid Solovyov
Dutch novelist Maria Dermoût
Soviet writer Emmanuil Kazakevich
French philosopher Gaston Bachelard
French author Princess Marie Bonaparte
Chilean author and political figure Jorge González von Marées
Chinese philosopher and essayist Hu Shih
Turkish writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Algerian poet Jean Amrouche
American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier
American children's author Mary Augusta Dickerson
Indian social reformer Maharishi Karve
English writer and classical scholar Aubrey de Sélincourt
American author Gladys Malvern
French composer Jacques Ibert
Austrian composer Hanns Eisler
American diplomat Eric Wollencott Barnes
German political scientist Sigmund Neumann
English economic historian R. H. Tawney
American writer Nina Wilcox Putnam
American historian Garrett Mattingly
Slovak writer Ľudo Ondrejov
English biologist Ronald Fisher
Slovene architect Max Fabiani
German artist Gabriele Münter
English journalist Philip Gibbs
English artist and occultist Frieda Harris
English writer Clifford Bax
American jurist and writer Curtis Bok
Slovene writer Fran Saleški Finžgar
Lebanese poet Maroun Abboud
English writer Ethel Carnie Holdsworth
Tanzanian poet Shaaban Bin Robert
Austrian-American psychoanlyst Edmund Bergler
American politician Clement Woodnutt Miller
Swedish-German writer Clara Nordström
American composer Irving Fine
American children's author Mabel Robinson
American journalist and author George Matthew Adams
English-American classicist G. M. Hirst
American travel writer Harry A. Franck
Japanese author Ujaku Akita
American artist Eugene Speicher
American physician, novelist and transsexual Alan L. Hart
French neurologist Cécile Vogt-Mugnier
Japanese historical novelist Eiji Yoshikawa
American playwright Jules Eckert Goodman
French historian Daniel Halévy
English composer John Ireland
Soviet playwright Nikolai Pogodin
American ornithologist William Beebe
Japanese writer Hakuchō Masamune
American author Clyde Brion Davis
Romanian novelist Felix Aderca
South African ornithologist Alwin Karl Haagner
American architect Royal Barry Wills
French-American sculptor Herbert Haseltine
Norwegian novelist Trygve Gulbranssen
American artist Lillian Cotton
Indian writer Devudu Narasimha Sastri
Czech writer Josef Kopta
Austrian-American mathematician Emil Artin
Bengali writer Sulekha Sanyal
English graphic artist Donald McGill
British author Sir Duncan Swann
American biochemist and discoverer of niacin, Conrad Elvehjem
American sculptor Augusta Savage
British pacifist Ruth Fry
Filipino journalist and politician Arsenio Lacson
American pianist and organist Jesse Crawford
Scottish polar explorer and geologist James Wordie
Austrian artist Luigi Kasimir
Acadian politician and journalist Ferdinand Joseph Robidoux
Polish mountaineer Jan Długosz
Portuguese artist Bernardo Marques
Scottish politician William Darling
English dance critic Beryl de Zoete
American journalist Nils Nilsen Ronning
Swiss-American artist Kurt Seligmann
Japanese novelist and poet Murō Saisei
Russian-Israeli journalist and activist Abba Ahimeir
American painter Morris Louis
English mathematician Thorold Gosset
British geographer and military historian Charles Gwynn
Croatian artist Vladimir Varlaj
American illustrator and cartoonist John H. Striebel
English radical cartoonist and writer J. F. Horrabin
American novelist Caroline Lockhart
American journalist and author Albert Rhys Williams
Danish author Hans Kirk
Polish soldier and military historian Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski
English composer, geologist and author Ernest St. John Burton
Dravidian novelist and activist Jacques Chevalier
Australian artist Mary Cecil Allen
American socialist politician George A. Nelson
British fascist Ormonde Winter
English painter Arthur Spooner
Welsh-American author and playwright Lawrence Langner
English artist Jacob Kramer
Japanese poet Jun Kawada
British politician and playwright Robert Venables Vernon Harcourt
American sociologist C. Wright Mills
Australian poet Margaret Curran
Polish writer Leon Kruczkowski
American sportswriter Ernest Lanigan
American historian Reinhard H. Luthin
Czech author, musicologist, and politician Zdeněk Nejedlý
American ornithologist and geographer Carl R. Eklund
Ukrainian architect and designer Volodymyr Sichynskyi
Argentinian philologist María Rosa Lida de Malkiel
American architect and author John Vredenburgh Van Pelt
Canadian author Egerton Ryerson Young
French historian and mystic Antonin Gadal
American physicist William Coblentz
French writer and artist André Rouveyre
American historian and hispanicist Irving A. Leonard
American lawyer Gertrude Rush
Chinese-Indonesian playwright Njoo Cheong Seng
French philologist Louis Gernet
American poet Hyam Plutzik
British linguist and Indian government official David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer
Azerbaijani journalist and ethnographer Jeyhun Hajibeyli
Danish-American botanist and writer Jens Christian Bay
German physicist Heinrich Ott
Thai politician and writer Luang Wichitwathakan
Latvian-born composer Solomon Rosowsky
Dutch-American engineer and landscape architect Michiel Pesman
Croatian essayist and critic Branko Gavella
English architect and author F. R. S. Yorke
American children's author Emilie Blackmore Stapp
French artist Yves Klein
British scholar and translator Emily Anderson
British soldier and author Christopher Birdwood
American naturalist Ansel Franklin Hall
Romanian poet and theologian Sandu Tudor
American socialist James Oneal
Austrian philatelist Edwin Müller
Indonesian writer Muhammad Yamin
Indian political figure Abdul Majeed Khwaja

Public Domain Day 2012

It is January 1, 2012, the start of a new year in the Gregorian calendar, and that means, it's Public Domain Day!

Yes, the earth having orbited the sun once again, copyrights in millions of words, images, and other works of human creativity and genius, expired wherever in the world copyrights subsist for the life of the creator (or last-surviving of multiple creators), for X years thereafter, and then to the end of that year.

Such works do not include only "literary works" in the sense of literature: they also include written works in the pure and applied sciences, humanities, biography and autobiography, as well as musical and artistic works. They include works by presidents and peasants, heroes and villains, from ever corner, in every language and medium.

In the life+50 universe, which includes Canada, the key date is 1961. Some of the more prominent transitions to the public domain today include works by:

• Canadian novelist Mazo de la Roche
• British politician and Newfoundland Commissioner Sir John Hope Simpson
• American author Ernest Hemingway
• Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung
• Swedish diplomat and author Dag Hammarskjöld
• Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger
• American writer and cartoonist James Thurber
• American artist Grandma Moses
• American playwright Moss Hart
• American artist Max Weber
• Italian mathematician Beppo Levi
• Serbian poet Branko Miljković
• Nazi war criminal Kurt Meyer (published his self-serving memoir “Grenadiere” in 1957)

And many, many more. See below for just a short list. Really.

As an illustration of the impact on copyright term of multiple authorship, American baseball player Ty Cobb's autobiography, “My Life in Baseball”, would have been public domain today if Cobb were the sole author. However, as a collaboration with sports writer Al Stump, the work will remain in life+50 copyright until 2046, as Stump lived until 1995.

On the other hand, Irving Cohn's death in 1961 means “Yes, We Have No Bananas” is now public-domain in the life+50 universe. The life+50 clock ran out on his collaborator, Frank Silver, one year ago today.

Over in the life+70 universe, which includes most of Europe, the biggest name is James Joyce — the long tyrrany of the Joyce  Estate is over, at least in respect of works published during the author's lifetime.

Works by the founder of the Scouting movement, Lord Baden-Powell, are also life+70 public-domain today — as are, interestingly enough, those of American writer Sherwood Anderson and Ukrainian writer Petro Franko, who were pioneers of related scouting movements in their respective countries.

The life+70 copyrights of American military aviator and poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr. have also expired, most notably his poem “High Flight”. Magee was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force at the time of his death.

The impact of the Second World War figures prominently in the list of life+70 copyright expiries, given the deaths of so many political, literary, military, religious, and other figures, whether in combat, in the Holocaust and other war-time atrocities, or in totalitarian purges or civil unrest in many countries throughout the world.

In the United States, life+70 copyrights have also now expired in respect of previously unpublished works by authors who died in 1941. This includes many manuscript records, such as letters or diaries, held in archives, historical societies, museums, and other such institutions.

(In Canada, thanks to poor legislative drafting and bad policy decisions, not a single additional scrap of unpublished archival paper, by anyone who has died since 1948, will become public domain until 2049. Thus, while Mazo de la Roche's book copyrights have expired, any of her surviving, previously unpublished letters or other manuscripts are still "protected" by copyright. Unless it is changed in the interim, the copyright rules concerning unpublished literary works will have a deleterious impact on Canadian scholarship for decades to come.)

A few other prominent or interesting creators whose life+70 copyrights have now expired include:

• Indian writer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore
• English author Virginia Woolf
• American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon
• American author and illustrator Daniel Carter Beard
• British egyptologist N. de Garis Davies
• American songwriter Gus Kahn
• American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf
• British writer P. C. Wren (“Beau Geste”)
• American lyricist Howard Johnson (“I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream”)
• British archaeologist Arthur Evans
• Australian poet Banjo Paterson (“Waltzing Matilda”)
• Canadian physician, co-discoverer of insulin Frederick Banting
• American Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis

And of course, many, many more. Another short list appears below.

(Note that the inclusion of an author or work on the life+50 or life+70 public domain list is subject to all sorts of potentially complicating wrinkles depending on your country's copyright laws, including co-authorship effects, the Rule of the Shorter Term, war-related term extensions, retroactive extension, domaine public payant, and moral rights. And let's not even get into the thorny problem of countries with shorter, longer, or wierder copyright terms.)

Copyright is necessary for our cultural life and cultural economy. But so is copyright expiration, allowing us all to build on the collective cultural and intellectual past of our own countries and of the entire world. If you value the public domain, and reasonable limits on the breadth, scope, and duration of copyright, and oppose the march towards pointlessly-longer copyright terms, write your local elected official today and make your feelings known.

Short live copyright, and long live the public domain!

SOME OTHER AUTHORS WHOSE WORKS HAVE ENTERED THE LIFE+50 PUBLIC DOMAIN

ARTS, ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN: Lithuanian sculptor Petras Rimša; Swiss artist Cuno Amiet; Australian artist Lionel Lindsay; Dutch architect Albert Aalbers; American artist Jane Emmet de Glehn; French sculptor Paul Landowski (“Christ the Redeemer”, Rio de Janeiro); Norwegian sculptor Anne Grimdalen; Scottish artist John Macdonald Aiken; Italian artist Mario Sironi; American illustrator Wilson McCoy (“The Phantom”); Italian sculptor Arrigo Minerbi; Ukrainian-born American artist John D. Graham; English painter Harold Knight; French designer Jules Leleu; French artist Georges Henri Manzana Pissarro; Welsh artist Augustus John; French sculptor Robert Delandre; Norwegian-Danish artist and critic Pola Gauguin; Peruvian artist Sérvulo Gutiérrez; British-Canadian architect Peter Dickinson (Hummingbird Centre); English botanical artist Mary Emily Eaton; French illustrator Joseph Hémard; Italian-American sculptor Leo Lentelli; German communist journalist Karl Volk; American designer Alice Cordelia Morse; English architect and planner William Robert Davidge; American artist and writer Clark Ashton Smith; Hungarian painter István Csók; Scottish artist John Duncan Fergusson; German artist Werner Gilles; American stained-glass artist Lawrence Saint; Italian painter Cesare Maggi; American cartoonist Hal Rasmusson; Danish artist Johannes Larsen; English painter Vanessa Bell; Flemish artist Jean Baptiste Leopold Colin; Finnish architect and designer Eero Saarinen (St. Lewis Gateway Arch, Star Trek “tulip chairs”); Russian artist Nadezhda Udaltsova; Serbian artist Kosta Hakman; Dutch architect Jan Buijs; Japanese artist Seiu Ito; French illustrator Chéri Herouard; Portuguese artist José Dias Coelho; German artist Karl Albiker; German artist and author Fritz Mühlenweg; Slovene artist and poet Jakob Savinšek; American caricaturist Kate Carew; American artist Albert Bloch; American sculptor Frederick Warren Allen; Canadian-American illustrator Charles Archibald MacLellan; Mexican artist Carlos Alvarado Lang; Ukrainian artist Kateryna Vasylivna Bilokur; Mexican writer and artist Marius de Zayas; American artist Violet Oakley; French artist and author Jean Oberlé; Hungarian sculptor István Beöthy; Czech artist František Cína Jelínek; German artist Fritz Lang ; Spanish sculptor Francisco Asorey; Brazilian artist Oswaldo Goeldi; American artist Huc-Mazelet Luquiens; Scottish sculptor William Reid Dick; French sculptor Marcel Gimond; American artist Frank Tolles Chamberlin; Dutch architect Piet Kramer; Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg.

HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES, RELIGION: Romanian theologian and writer Gala Galaction; French historian Auguste-Armand de la Force; Canadian-born classical scholar Herbert Jennings Rose ; Japanese economist Tadao Yanaihara; Bulgarian economist Dimitar Dobrev ; American historian Robert Preston Brooks; German-born author and astrologer Louis de Wohl; Martinique-born philosopher Frantz Fanon; Danish philologist Carsten Høeg; Ukrainian musicologist Moshe Beregovski; Norwegian geographer Werner Werenskiold; Swedish literary historian Fredrik Böök; Anglo-Canadian philosopher Rupert Lodge; Belgian philosopher Robert Feys; American philosopher George Holland Sabine; American classicist Marion Elizabeth Blake; English archivist William Le Hardy; Turkish historian and politician Şemsettin Günaltay; Italian economist and politician Luigi Einaudi; Puerto Rican historian Bolívar Pagán; Estonian historian Richard Indreko; American clergyman William Henry Branson; American ethnologist John Peabody Harrington; British historian Norman H. Baynes; American educator Louis P. Bénézet; British historian Charles Webster ; American musicologist Archibald Thompson Davison; French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty; American anthropologist Fay-Cooper Cole; French archaeologist Étienne Drioton; Norwegian historian Sverre Kjeldstadli; Prussian-born classicist Werner Jaeger; American folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon; American pseudoscientist Meade Layne; Armenian historian Vahan Kurkjian; Irish art historian Thomas Bodkin; Tamil scholar R. P. Sethu Pillai; Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga.

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM: Tunisian poet Salem Ben Hmida; American author James Cloyd Bowman; Russian artist and writer Vasily Kamensky; Norwegian journalist Lise Lindbæk; Australian writer Edmund Barclay; Canadian writer M. Wylie Blanchet; Norwegian writer Olav Gullvåg; Faroese writer and translator Victor Danielsen; Japanese playwright and novelist Nagayo Yoshirō; Japanese author Mimei Ogawa; Australian novelist Alice Grant Rosman; Haitian poet Roussan Camille; Australian poet Harry Hooton; American playwright Dorothy Heyward (“Porgy”); Australian poet Rupert Atkinson; American sports writer Walter S. Trumbull; Cuban writer Jorge Mañach; Finnish pulp writer Aarne Haapakoski; English-born writer Ivy May Bolton; American writer Jessie Redmon Fauset; Japanese writer Michio Takeyama; American writer Mary Craig Sinclair; American author Julia Lynch Olin; American writer Josephine Daskam Bacon; American writer Mary Freeman Byrne; American poet Ruby Archer ; Czech writer Bedřich Golombek; Swedish writer Hjalmar Gullberg; Norwegian writer Kitty Wentzel; British novelist E. Arnot Robertson; Ainu epic poet Imekanu; American literary critic Henry Seidel Canby; Canadian-American writer Isabel Paterson; American writer H.D.; English author Christopher Landon; American playwright George S. Kaufman; Kazakh playwright Mukhtar Auezov; Czech writer Jan Matzal ; French poet André de Richaud; Argentinian writer Enrique Larreta; American editor and writer Isaac Frederick Marcosson; Swiss-French writer Blaise Cendrars; Brazilian writer José de Mesquita; Polish writer Stefania Zahorska; American novellist Thomas Bell ; Swiss poet Regina Ullmann; Swedish poet Nils Ferlin; Australian writer Ethel Cooper; American novelist Henry Morton Robinson; British author Cecil Chisholm; American writer Louis J. Stellman; Italian writer E. A. Mario; Anglo-American writer Francis Neilson; Romanian-American writer Konrad Bercovici; British crime writer Patricia Wentworth; Dutch novelist Antoon Coolen; Haitian novellist Jacques Stephen Alexis; Danish playwright Kjeld Abell; Monagesque writer Louis Notari; German writer Leonhard Frank; English detective writer H. C. Bailey; Senegalese author Abdoulaye Sadji; Welsh poet Huw Menai; Dutch writer Nescio; Indian poet Amjad Hyderabadi; American writer Clare Benedict; American author Nell Martin; English children's author Joanna Cannan; Australian novelist Jeannie Gunn (“We of the Never Never”); Russian writer Olga Forsh; Norwegian writer Kristofer Uppdal; German translator Franz Kuhn; English author Oliver Onions; Romanian author Cezar Petrescu; Japanese novelist Muramatsu Shōfu; British poet and publisher Geoffrey Faber; American novellist Ruth Chatterton; English poet Herbert Edward Palmer; Egyptian poet Mahmud Bayram el-Tunsi; Romanian novelist Mihail Sadoveanu; Anglo-Australian novelist Angela Thirkell; Japanese writer Kōji Uno; American writer Julia Peterkin; American author Lavinia R. Davis; Libyan poet Ahmed Rafiq Almhadoui; German communist journalist Kurt Lichtenstein; English writer Charles Hamilton ; Mexican author Rogelio Barriga Rivas; American children's author Carolyn Sherwin Bailey; Italian writer Giovanni Battista Angioletti; Norwegian crime novelist Fridtjof Knutsen; French writer Émile Henriot ; American author Lewis Reimann; American writer Kenneth Fearing; Canadian writer Judith Robinson; Indian writer Kusumavati Deshpande; American poet Robert Hillyer; American writer Dorothy Thompson; Japanese author Shigeru Tonomura; Czech author Jakub Deml; Italian writer (and mistress to Benito Mussolini) Margherita Sarfatti; American detective writer Dashiell Hammett (“The Maltese Falcon”); French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline; American author Ellen LaMotte; English-born artist and author Katharine Maltwood; Lithuanian writer Antanas Škėma; Romanian author Alexandru Busuioceanu; American journalist Cedric Adams; Maltese writer Dun Karm Psaila; American writer Whittaker Chambers.

MUSIC AND FILM: American composer John J. Becker; French composer Maurice Delage; American jazz musician Jerry Blake; American composer Wilbur Sweatman; German composer Robert Pracht; German composer Walter Goetze; Greenlandic songwriter Jonathan Petersen; Australian composer W. Arundel Orchard; English composer Katharine Emily Eggar; American songwriter Art Gillham; Italian composer Guido Alberto Fano; Spanish composer Julián Bautista; British composer Adelina de Lara; American composer Robert MacArthur Crawford (“The Air Force Song”); American composer Fitzhugh Andrews; French composer Guy de Lioncourt; Hungarian director Géza von Bolváry; Spanish Basque composer Jesús Guridi; American composer Theodore Chanler; Icelandic composer Björgvin Guðmundsson; Canadian composer Gérald Gagnier; Canadian composer Henri Gagnon; Japanese anime pioneer Noburō Ōfuji; American composer Tom Scott ; Chinese songwriter Chen Gexin; Australian-American composer Percy Grainger; English composer Henry Geehl; Egyptian musician Zakariyya Ahmad ; Puerto Rican songwriter Sylvia Rexach; British lyricist Douglas Furber; Finnish poet and composer Elmer Diktonius; Canadian composer Jack Kane ; American composer Wallingford Riegger; Finnish composer Nils-Eric Fougstedt; French songwriter Marguerite Monnot; Russian composer Alexander Goldenweiser ; Finnish composer Uuno Klami; American writer and director Edward F. Cline; Canadian composer Rosario Bourdon; English composer York Bowen; Swiss artist Carl Eugen Keel; American film director Denison Clift; Swedish composer John Fernström; Danish composer Victor Cornelius; English entertainer and songwriter George Formby; British lyricist and writer Archibald Thomas Pechey; British screenwriter Alex Bryce.

POLITICS, LAW, BUSINESS: Armenian-Canadian businessman Aris Alexanian ; Canadian journalist and politician George Murray; Finnish nationalist Erkki Räikkönen; Newfoundland politician Robert Brown Job; English philanthropist Basil Henriques; American writer and labour activist Ralph Chaplin (“Solidarity Forever” lyricist); American judge and legal scholar Learned Hand; American diplomat Sumner Welles; American socialist E.B. "Harry" Ault; American business executive Chester Barnard; Dutch counterintelligence officer Oreste Pinto; Australian politician Bruce Pie; Irish peer and writer Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford; American public-opinion pollster Claude E. Robinson; American suffragette Margretta Dietrich; American lawyer David Hunter Miller; American pacifist Emily Greene Balch; Puerto Rican politician Cayetano Coll y Cuchí; American naval officer Ellis M. Zacharias; Chinese journalist and politician Xia Qifeng; American naval officer and naval architect Harold E. Saunders; English lawyer and politician Abraham Montagu Lyons.

PURE AND APPLIED SCIENCES, MEDICINE, MATHEMATICS: American botanist John Thomas Curtis; Danish engineer Anker Engelund; Egyptian archaeologist Selim Hassan; German mathematician Erich Kamke; German crystallographer Carl Hermann; American chemist Atherton Seidell; Danish botanist Johannes Boye Petersen; English mathematician Wilfrid Norman Bailey; French neurologist Georges Guillain; British Antarctic explorer Michael Barne; English chemist Morris Travers; American entomologist Philip Powell Calvert; German neurologist Klaus Conrad; British astronomer Philibert Jacques Melotte; South African zoologist and archaeologist John Hewitt ; Canadian Arctic zoologist Rudolph Martin Anderson; Romanian mathematician and poet Ion Barbu; French archaeologist Abbé Breuil; Belgian microbiologist Jules Bordet; Australian ornithologist Raymond Trewolla Littlejohns; German astronomer Paul ten Bruggencate; Indian physicist Sir Kariamanickam Srinivasa Krishnan; British marine biologist Thomas Alan Stephenson; Romanian mathematician Simion Stoilow; Estonian mathematician Edgar Krahn; American Antarctic explorer Stuart Paine; Italian mathematician Francesco Severi; Danish oceanographer Anton Frederik Bruun; Polish archaeologist Tadeusz Andrzejewski; American physician Edgar Van Nuys Allen ; American physicist Howard Percy Robertson; English physician and writer Henry Howarth ; English mountaineer Hugh Ruttledge; American physicist and Nobel laureate Percy Williams Bridgman; British botanist Frederick Gugenheim Gregory; English physicist William Astbury; American surgeon Emily Barringer; Danish botanist Olaf Hagerup; German-American electrical engineer Reinhold Rudenberg; Dutch physicist Henk Dorgelo; American mathematician Cyrus Colton MacDuffee; Bengali science writer Charu Chandra Bhattacharya; German-American pharmacologist and Nobel laureate Otto Loewi; Indian astronomer Amil Kumar Das; American physician and humanitarian Thomas Anthony Dooley III.

SOME OTHER AUTHORS WHOSE WORKS HAVE ENTERED THE LIFE+70 PUBLIC DOMAIN

ARTS, ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN: Irish artist Mildred Anne Butler; Australian artist John Longstaff; Czech poet and artist František Kaván; English illustrator Edgar Alfred Holloway; Belgian artist Eugène Boch; Russian-born artist Alexej von Jawlensky; French artist Robert Delaunay; French artist Émile Bernard; Georgian artist Shalom Koboshvili; Luxembourg artist Sosthène Weis; Hungarian artist Vilmos Aba-Novák; Czech artist František Bílek; French artist Maximilien Luce; Mexican artist Leandro Izaguirre; Italian artist Ludovico Tommasi; American war artist Walter Jack Duncan; Italian artist Ettore Tito; English artist and writer Wynford Dewhurst; Dutch artist Leo Gestel; Japanese-born artist Yasushi Tanaka; American artist William McGregor Paxton; Peruvian artist Carlos Baca-Flor; English artist Louis Davis; Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil; American sculptor Roland Hinton Perry; Australian artist Albert Ernest Newbury; American artist George de Forest Brush; French artist Jean Marchand ; English woodcut artist Mabel Allington Royds; Irish artist John Lavery; Irish artist William Gerard Barry; American artist Louis Eilshemius; English artist and illustrator Sidney Sime; British artist and illustrator Henry Justice Ford; French artist and author Frédéric-Auguste Cazals; American author and illustrator Dillwyn Parrish; American artist Frederick Gottwald; Russian artist El Lissitzky; Hungarian artist Károly Patkó; German-American illustrator Max Brödel; German writer and artist Herwarth Walden.

HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES, RELIGION: British archaeologist John Pendlebury; Russian linguist A. V. Grebenshchikov; Scottish historian and economist James Bonar; German economist Werner Sombart; Swedish anthropologist C. V. Hartman; Indian scholar Ganganath Jha; English biblical scholar J. Rendel Harris; Norwegian philologist Anton Ræder; French geographer Lucien Gallois; Serbian historian Vladimir Ćorović; Byelorussian Jewish historian Simon Dubnow; American anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons; American linguist Guy Sumner Lowman; British assyriologist Reginald Campbell Thompson; English church historian F. J. Foakes-Jackson; English classicist Leonard Whibley; British archaeologist William Hawley; Belgian hagiographer Hippolyte Delehaye; British economist Josiah Stamp; American English professor George Lyman Kittredge; American Sanskrit scholar Charles Rockwell Lanman; Australian historian and politician Thomas Welsby; German classicist Friedrich Marx; Polish anthropologist Ludwik Krzywicki; Portuguese ethnographer and historian José Leite de Vasconcelos; German philosopher Hans Lipps; German art historian Josef Strzygowski; Polish philologist Henryk Breit; Swedish historian Carl Grimberg; Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer; Austrian musicologist Guido Adler; German mystic A. Frank Glahn; Finnish philosopher Arvi Grotenfelt; Japanese philosopher Kuki Shūzō; English Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill; American educator Ellwood Patterson Cubberley; Italian political scientist Gaetano Mosca; Italian philosopher Giuseppe Rensi; British historian C. R. M. F. Cruttwell; German historian and archaeologist Karl Siegfried Döring; British archaeologist Francis Turville-Petre; American historian Worthington C. Ford; American historian James Westfall Thompson; French philospher and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson; Polish Jewish historian Meir Balaban; British art historian Gilbert Richard Redgrave; German orientalist Gustaf Dalman; German philosopher Alexander Pfänder; English historian Ramsay Muir; American religious historian Preserved Smith; Spanish economist Antonio Flores de Lemus.

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM: Australian poet Enid Derham; Greek children's author Penelope Delta; American author Frances Little; Scottish writer A. G. Macdonell; Italian journalist Luigi Albertini; New Zealand-born English writer Hugh Walpole; Indonesian author Merari Siregar; Irish poet F. R. Higgins; English writer Bessie Marchant; English writer William Arthur Dunkerley; Soviet children's author Arkady Gaidar; Anglo-American pulp writer J. Allan Dunn; Hungarian writer Mihály Babits; German writer Eduard Heyck; Catalan poet and essayist Gabriel Alomar i Villalonga; Russian poet Igor Severyanin; American writer William Cranston Lawton; Russian playwright Alexander Afinogenov; English poet Jessie Pope; Swedish writer Hjalmar Söderberg; French author Marcel Prévost; American journalist and author Charles Edward Russell; Syrian poet Qustaki al-Himsi; French poet Tristan Derème; Chinese author Xu Dishan; Indian poet Fani Badayuni; Australian writer Winifred Lewellin James; German-American novelist Hans Otto Storm; English writer A. J. A. Symons; Polish writer Witold Hulewicz; German writer and translator Margarete Steffin; Russian writer Arkady Gornfeld; Ukrainian writer Bohdan Lepky; American socialist journalist David Karsner; American writer Margaret Cushing Osgood; Persian poet Parvin E'tesami; Greek playwright Pantelis Horn; Lithuanian poet Pranas Morkūnas; Australian writer Fred J. Broomfield; Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva; American author W. J. Cash; British travel writer Robert Byron; Norwegian-American author Waldemar Ager; British writer Arnold Haultain; Georgian poet Valerian Gaprindashvili; Australian-born novelist Elizabeth von Arnim; Irish author Valentine O'Hara; African-American author William H. Ferris; English writer A. J. Alan; American playwright Wilson Collison; American writer Aline Murray Kilmer; French author Louis Bertrand ; Swiss author Guy de Pourtalès; Swedish writer Karin Boye; English writer Samuel Middleton Fox; German writer Gabriele Reuter; Faroese poet Janus Djurhuus; Ecuadorian writer José de la Cuadra; Czech poet Jiří Orten; Italian writer Amalia Guglielminetti; Swiss writer Albin Zollinger; Lebanese-Palestinian writer May Ziade; Polish writer Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński; Portuguese writer Raul Proença; Croatian writer August Cesarec; English writer A. J. Alan; American journalist and author George Sibley Johns; American writer Elizabeth Madox Roberts; Puerto Rican poet José Antonio Dávila; Polish writer Emil Zegadłowicz; Australian writer Randolph Bedford; Belarussian poet Ales Prudnikau; British poet Frederick Victor Branford; Scottish poet Charles Murray ; American writer Anna Maynard Barbour; German playwright Max Neal; American music critic Pitts Sanborn; British journalist Emsley Carr; American poet Lola Ridge; American author Miles Menander Dawson; German dramatist and author Johannes Schlaf; British writer Max Plowman; Austrian author Ernst Décsey; French author Maurice Leblanc; Australian adventurer Francis Birtles; British writer Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall.

MUSIC AND FILM: American composer Clara Anna Korn; British composer Walford Davies; Czech writer and songwriter Karel Hašler; Italian composer Virginia Mariani Campolieti; Lithuanian composer Jurgis Karnavičius ; American composer Robert Hood Bowers; American composer Pearl G. Curran; Norwegian composer Iver Holter; Estonian composer Miina Härma; English composer Frank Bridge; American jazz composer Jelly Roll Morton; Irish composer Hamilton Harty; German composer Heinrich Zöllner; American composer Victor Schertzinger; Argentinian musician and songwriter Agustín Bardi; Chinese composer Ren Guang; Korean composer Hong Nan-pa; French composer Henri Christiné; Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar; English musical educator Stewart Macpherson; Uruguayan composer Enrique Saborido; Croatian composer Žiga Hirschler; Cuban composer Jorge Anckermann; German composer Hugo Becker; Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl; Swiss composer and author Marcel Sulzberger; American composer and musicologist Charles Sanford Skilton; Norwegian composer Christian Sinding; Mexican composer Miguel Lerdo de Tejada.

POLITICS, LAW, BUSINESS: British colonial administrator Hugh Clifford; Portuguese President and writer Manuel Teixeira Gomes; Dutch author and diplomat Hendrik Pieter Nicolaas Muller; British colonial administrator and scholar Richard James Wilkinson; American suffragette and socialist Ida Crouch-Hazlett; British administrator and translator Charles Archer; Georgian writer and jurist Giorgi Gvazava; American suffragette Laura Clay; British diplomat and writer Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell; British army officer and author Colin Robert Ballard; British politician and diplomat Edgar Vincent; Filipino writer and politician Norberto Romuáldez; Australian Governor-General Ronald Munro Ferguson; Polish writer and military officer Mariusz Zaruski; Mongolian prime minister Anandyn Amar; British civil servant and writer E. A. H. Blunt; British diplomat and writer Sir Horace Rumbold.

PURE AND APPLIED SCIENCES, MEDICINE, MATHEMATICS: English ornithologist Maud Doria Haviland; German ornithologist Anton Reichenow; Norwegian astronomer Kristian Lous; English entomologist Harry Eltringham; British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith; American obstetrician Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead; American nutritionist Mary Swartz Rose; Dutch mathematician Diederik Korteweg; Swiss geologist and palaeontologist Hans Georg Stehlin; Scottish mathematician Robert Franklin Muirhead; German physicist Hans Heinrich Euler; French mathematician Henri Lebesgue; German chemist Walther Nernst; American mathematician William Pitt Durfee; French bacteriologist Adrien Loir; Austrian physicist Arthur Erich Haas; English botanist Arthur William Hill; French chemist Paul Sabatier ; Russian biologist Georgii Karpechenko; American palaeontologist Walter W. Granger; American ichthyologist Hugh McCormick Smith; Swiss botanist Hans Schinz; German entomologist Oswald Duda; Danish entomologist William Lundbeck; Italian botanist Emilio Chiovenda; South African botanist Ernest Edward Galpin; British botanist and geologist Albert Charles Seward; American chemist Carleton Ellis; German mathematician Friedrich Engel ; American entomologist Alexandre Arsène Girault; Danish physicist Kirstine Meyer; German astronomer Philipp Johann Heinrich Fauth; German astronomer Hans Ludendorff; American geologist Robert T. Hill; German physician Adalbert Czerny; French physician and obstetrician Pierre-Victor-Adolphe Auvard; French mathematician Charles Émile Picard; German neurologist Otfrid Foerster; French physicist Jacques Curie; German mathematician Alfred Pringsheim; British ornithologist Claud Buchanan Ticehurst; Latvian-born mathematician Theodor Molien; American physicist Dayton Miller.

Ask, and it shall be given you

New Zealandish MP Gareth Hughes asks:

I'm looking for help and support to draft a 'fair use' private members' bill to amend Copyright Act

And this corner is more than happy to oblige. The following amendments, which might have to be re-phrased and re-formatted to conform to New Zealandian legislative practice, would (a) abolish Crown copyright entirely, without taking away from rights or responsibilities which protect personal information held by government, or which safeguard legitimate official secrecy, and (b) extend the non-copyright status of New Zealand government official works to the official works of other countries, including those of the Mother Parliament at Westminster.

Section 26 of the Copyright Act 1994 No 143 is repealed and the following subsituted therefor:

26 Crown copyright

(1) Where a work is made by a person employed or engaged by the Crown under a contract of service, a contract of apprenticeship, or a contract for services, copyright does not subsist in that work, whenever that work was made.

(2) The fact that there is no copyright in a work referred to in subsection (1) does not —

(a) obviate, or abrogate or derogate from, any of the Information privacy principles enumerated in the Privacy Act 1993 No. 28;

(b) relieve any agency from its obligations under that Act; or

(c) authorise the disclosure of personal information as defined in that Act.

(3) The fact that copyright does not subsist in a work referred to in subsection (1) does not obviate, or abrogate or derogate from, any of the reasons for withholding official information enumerated in Part 1 of the Official Information Act 1982 No 156.

Section 27 of the Copyright Act 1994 No 143 is amended by the addition, after subsection (1B), of the following:

(1C) No Crown copyright or other copyright subsists in—

(a) any Bill, Act, regulation, bylaw, of any parliament, legislature, or any other legislative body outside New Zealand;

(b) in the proceedings, reports, debates, journals or other official publications or records, of any parliament, legislature, or any other legislative body outside New Zealand;

(c) in the judgements or proceedings of any court or tribunal outside New Zealand; or

(d) in any reports of Royal commissions, commissions of inquiry, ministerial inquiries, or official or statutory inquiries conducted by any authority outside New Zealand

whenever that work was made.

Public Domain Day 2011

It's January 1^st, 2011, New Year's Day and, for millions of “works” in the copyright law sense of the term, the first day of the rest of their existence. Yes, it is Public Domain Day, the day on which “life-plus” copyrights expire in those countries which calculate the duration of copyright from the death of the author, for N years thereafter, and to the end of that final year.

In Canada, that term is “life plus fifty”, which brings into the public domain the published works of a number of historically prominent Canadians. Chief among them would be Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, artist Paul-Émile Borduas, writer G. Herbert Sallans (“Little Man”, GG award in 1942), and poet Jean Charbonneau.

Some lesser-known Canadians whose published copyrights expired at midnight include soldier and author Harold R. Peat, journalist and politician Joseph Charles Walsh, historian Bruce Alistair McKelvie, Scottish-born artist and professor Jock Macdonald, poet and writer J. Edgar Middleton, politician and writer Victor Morin, painter Fred S. Haines, physician and writer Philippe Panneton, astronomer Andrew McKellar, artist Victor Child, politician and author William Henry Moore, poet Eustace Jenns, medical scientist and artist Maud Menten, and Canadian-American astronomer Samuel Alfred Mitchell.

Unfortunately, due to incredibly short-sighted amendments to the Copyright Act in 1997, unpublished works by these same authors, and others who died in 1960, will remain under copyright in Canada until January 1, 2049. The best example of the perverse result of this would be Prime Minister Meighen, whose published works and speeches are public domain, but whose private correspondence and other unpublished material will be under copyright for another four decades.

Internationally, literary figures, having died in 1960, whose life+50 copyrights have just expired include Russian Nobel laureate in literature (“Dr. Zhivago”) Boris Pasternak; British-Australian novelist Nevil Shute (“On the Beach”, “A Town Like Alice”, “No Highway”); Irish writer Seumas MacManus; French author Albert Camus; and Dutch writer Chris van Abkoude (“Pietje Bell”). (See others, below.)

Due to the unusual history of copyright term in the United States, many works which may just now be coming into copyright in the life+50 universe are already public domain south of the border, having been published before 1923. One example would be African-American poet Effie Waller Smith, whose works were published in the first decade of the 20^th century.

In the world of art, design, and architecture, the life+50 clock has run out the works American illustrator James Montgomery Flagg. You may never have heard of him, but you have certainly seen his most famous work, the iconic 1917 U.S. Army recruiting poster of Uncle Sam, with the slogan “I want YOU for the U.S. Army”.

In music, life+50 copyright have expired for the sole-authored works of French composer André Bloch and American songwriter Pat Ballard (“Mr. Sandman”). A number of other prominent American songwriters shuffled off in 1960, including Eddie Cochran (“Summertime Blues”), Fabian Andre (“Dream a Little Dream of Me”), Frank Silver (“Yes, We Have No Bananas”), and Oscar Hammerstein II of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame. However, their works are not necessarily public domain today, due to the application of the life-plus rule to all others of joint works. Cochran's collaborator Jerry Capehart, and Andre's collaborator Wilbur Schwandt both lived until 1998, so “Summertime Blues” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me” will have life+50 copyright until January 1, 2049. Richard Rodgers lived until 1979, which means another 19 years of life+50 copyright for the Rodgers and Hammerstein corpus. Frank Silver's co-writer Irving Cohn, however, only outlived him by one year, which will bring “Yes, We Have No Bananas” into the life+50 public domain a year from today.

From the silver screen, the last frame of life+50 has run out on Italian screenwriter and director Gianni Franciolini; French director and screenwriter Jacques Becker; Danish screenwriter Svend Rindom; Russian-American screenwriter Sonya Levien; American screenwriter Frank Lloyd (“Mutiny on the Bounty”, 1935) ; German screenwriter and director Harald Braun; and Argentinian screenwriter and director Leopoldo Torres Ríos.

However, copyright doesn't “protect” only the works of literary and artistic expression. It also applies to “works” in other fields, especially books, articles, and monographs in all areas of human endeavour.

In the area of history and archaeology, copyright has expired on the solely-authored works of British historian Charles Singer, British archaeologist Leonard Woolley, and German historian Wilhelm Herzog.

Elsewhere in the humanities and liberal arts, the works of British orientalist Lionel Barnett, Dutch ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst, and American economist Edwin E. Witte are now public-domain in the life+50 world.

Out of the political and legal world, and out of copyright in life+50, if not in their own country, are works by British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, British politician Charles Ammon, 1st Baron Ammon, and Welsh politician Elizabeth Andrews. On the other hand, American William Morgan Shuster's 1913 “The Strangling of Persia” was already public-domain in the United States, and, for that matter, under the life+30 — yes, 30 — copyright term in Iran.

From the pure sciences, mathematics, and medicine, the new life+50 public domain is represented by the works of German-born astronomer Walter Baade, German-American geophysicist Beno Gutenberg, and Dutch astronomer Pieter Johannes van Rhijn.

And, in a variety of other fields, life+50 has run out on the works of Indian journalist Feroze Gandhi; American newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams; Russian-American Rabbi and scholar Mnachem Risikoff; Scottish theologian John Baillie; Italian missionary and ethnographer Father Alberto Maria De Agostini; British WWI flying ace James Ira Thomas "Taffy" Jones; Irish-born missionary and writer W. S. Pakenham-Walsh; Norwegian journalist Hans Aarnes; French admiral Pierre Barjot; American librarian Harry M. Lydenberg; Anglican Bishop of Melanesia Walter Hubert Baddeley; French journalist Georges Altman; Lebanese theologian and scholar Sheikh Ahmed Aref El-Zein; American systems engineer Harry H. Goode; American pastor Donald Barnhouse; English footballer and sports journalist Charlie Buchan; American journalist and war correspondent Lewis Ransome Freeman; German journalist and diarist Victor Klemperer; American naval officer and historian Dudley Wright Knox; American journalist and businessman James S. Carson; Turkish-born Jewish scholar Chaim Nahum.

Over in in the life+70 universe, which includes most of Europe and Latin America, works entering the public domain this year include those by American explorer Frederick Albert Cook; Dutch writer Menno ter Braak; Canadian physician Maude Abbott; Swedish writer Alfred Ploetz; Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky; English medical missionary to Labrador and Newfoundland Sir Wilfred Grenfell; Polish poet Kazimierz Tetmajer; English physicist and Nobel laureate J.J. Thomson; American writer John Monk Saunders; American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; American writer Nathanael West; American artist Mary Vaux Walcott; American biologist Raymond Pearl; French composer Maurice Jaubert; Swedish writer Verner von Heidenstam; Russian writer Isaak Babel; British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain; Buck Rogers creator Philip Francis Nowlan; Austrian neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Julius Wagner-Jauregg; Swiss-German painter Paul Klee; Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov; Ukrainian writer Isaac Babel; British sculptor and writer Eric Gill; and British novelist and Governor-General of Canada John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir.

The life+70 terms has also expired for the American copyright in unpublished works by those who died in 1940. By the end of this decade, the public domain in archival documents in the United States will surpass that of Canada in size, as the life+70 rule starts applying to works of those who died in 1948 and after, works which will continue to be "protected" in Canada until 2049.

Short live copyright, and long live the public domain. Happy Public Domain Day 2011!

Related:

http://publicdomainday.org/

http://www.digital-rights.net/?p=3137

http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2011/01/public-domain-day-2011.html

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/pre1976

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday

http://www.wallandbinkley.com/rcb/2011/01_01_public-domain-day.html

http://blog.okfn.org/2011/01/01/launch-of-the-public-domain-review-to-celebrate-public-domain-day-2011/

OTHER AUTHORS WHOSE WORKS HAVE ENTERED THE LIFE+50 PUBLIC DOMAIN

LITERARY FIGURES: American adventurer Roy Chapman Andrews; Swiss author Georges Oltramare; Japanese novelist Ashihei Hino; African-American author Richard Wright; Austrian writer Arthur Schütz; British arabist and writer St. John Philby; English author Eden Phillpotts; English poet F. S. Flint; American author Gene Fowler; Georgian writer Guram Rcheulishvili; French poet Gilberte H. Dallas; Russian novelist Yury Olesha; Italian writer and artist Fortunato Depero; Serbian poet Sima Pandurović; Filipino writer Iluminado Lucente; American poet and author Karle Wilson Baker; American writer Harry Kemp; Croatian writer Viktor Vida; French poet Paul Fort; American children's author Clara Ingram Judson; Norwegian author Sigurd Hoel; Scottish poet and author Rachel Annand Taylor; Iranian poet Nima Yooshij; American poet Dilys Laing; Swedish writer Per Hallström; Latvian writer Ernests Birznieks-Upitis; American writer Zora Neale Hurston; Spanish writer Gregorio Marañón; German writer Hedda Eulenberg; American mystery writer Roman McDougald; American writer Joy Davidman; English novelist Ethel Lilian Voynich; Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli; Slovene author Ivan Ahčin; Japanese poet and playwright Yoshii Isamu; British juvenile author (“The Abbey Girls”) Elsie J. Oxenham; American writer Raymond Abrashkin; British writer Douglas Goldring; French poet Fernand Gregh; English writer Lady Cynthia Asquith; English author and artist Ralph Chubb; Sierra Leonian author Adelaide Casely-Hayford; French writer Marie Gasquet; British author Olivia Rossetti Agresti; British pulp writer John Russell Fearn; English diarist Evelyn, Princess Blücher; Chilean writer Víctor Domingo Silva; Japanese children's author Kurushima Takehiko; American self-help writer Elizabeth Towne; American writer John P. Marquand; Swiss-German writer Curt Goetz; French poet Jules Supervielle; American light-verse writer Joseph Simon Newman; Flemish writer Willem Elsschot; Czech poet Jan Zahradníček; French poet Gérald Neveu; Indian Jain scholar and writer Nathuram Premi; Irish poet and translator Pádraig de Brún; Swedish writer Sven Lidman; Indian playwright Brajanath Sarma; pulp fiction writer Victor Rousseau Emanuel; British novelist Dornford Yates; Slovene writer Ivan Pregelj; Peruvian writer Antenor Orrego; English novelist Dorothy Bussy; Australian science fiction writer Norma Hemming; Scottish writer Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah; American playwright Edith Ellis; Scottish folklorist and author Calum Maclean; Puerto Rican writer and nationalist José Coll y Cuchí; Uruguayan writer Enrique Amorim; Kurdish writer Rafiq Hilmi; Senegalese poet David Diop; French philologist Marius Chaîne; Brazilian writer Narbal Fontes; Bengali writer Parashuram; American writer Emily Post; Indian poet and essayist Sudhindranath Dutta; Indian Tamil scholar Raghava Iyengar; English poet Frances Cornford; American author Negley Farson; Dutch author Piet Bakker; Portuguese poet Tomaz Vieira Da Cruz; Scottish-born mathematician and science fiction writer Eric Temple; French Guyanese writer René Maran; Austrian writer Vicki Baum; British playwright A. R. Whatmore; American novelist H. L. Davis; American poet James J. Metcalfe; Greek writer M. Karagatsis; Indian poet and author Sripada Krishnamurty Sastry; Italian author Sibilla Aleramo; Mexican playwright Julio Jiménez Rueda; Swedish biographer Archibald Douglas; Indian ghazal writer Jigar Moradabadi; American author Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe; Israeli author Ya'akov Cohen; American author Ruth Suckow; American author Eric P. Kelly; French poet Pierre Reverdy; American poet Audrey Wurdemann.

ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS: Australian-born British painter Henry Lamb; American sculptor Rudulph Evans; Russian sculptor Alexander Matveyev; American painter David Park; Irish artist Eva Henrietta Hamilton; Norwegian artist and designer Gabriel Kielland; British illustrator H. M. Brock; French sculptor Lucien Brasseur; English architect and writer Philip Morton Shand; French artist Jean Puy; Danish painter and author Harald Moltke; Dutch painter Dirk Smorenberg; French painter Auguste Herbin; Indian painter Sailoz Mookherjea; Mexican artist Francisco Goitia; American artist Dean Cornwell; Australian illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite; French sculptor Henri Bouchard; American painter Leon Dabo; American artist Ernest L. Blumenschein; English architect and designer Alfred Hoare Powell; Scottish architect Maxwell Ayrton; Japanese photographer Hakuyō Fuchikami; Russian artist Igor Grabar; American painter Genevieve Springston Lynch; Scottish architect Ninian Comper; Japanese artist Ei-Q; French artist Jean-Michel Atlan; Spanish artist Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza; Hungarian-born artist Georg Mayer-Marton; Hungarian-Romanian artist János Mattis-Teutsch; Indian painter Archibald Herman Muller; Hungarian-born painter and designer Vilmos Huszár; Spanish cartoonist Boixcar; English architect Giles Gilbert Scott; Filipino architect Juan Marcos Arellano; American dog painter Morgan Dennis; Bulgarian painter Vladimir Dimitrov; Hungarian artist Arthur Pan; Belgian artist Jozef Peeters; French artist Paul-Émile Bécat; American artist Rolf Armstrong; American sculptor Ulysses Ricci; British war artist Evelyn Dunbar; Belgian artist Anne Bonnet; Russian artist and writer Stepan Pisakhov; American illustrator Bessie Pease Gutmann; German architect Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot; British war artist Eric Kennington; Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi; American architect Douglas Ellington; Dutch painter Luite Klaver; Bosnian-Serbian sculptor Sreten Stojanović; American cartoonist Gene Ahern; American illustrator J. J. Lankes; French-born woodblock artist Paul Jacoulet; Russian artist Alexander V. Kuprin; French painter Andrée Lavieille; Welsh artist Margaret Lindsay Williams; Russian artist and art historian Alexandre Benois; German painter Edward Harrison Compton; German artist and architect Richard Ermisch; German-born sculptor Benno Elkan.

COMPOSERS AND SONGWRITERS: Italian composer Giovanni Antiga; Croatian composer Ivan Matetić Ronjgov; German composer Clemens Schmalstich; American organ composer Joseph W. Clokey; American composer Charles E. Duble; Welsh songwriter Mai Jones; Italian composer Vito Carnevali; Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi; Brazilian songwriter Newton Mendonça; American songwriter Al Hoffman; Hungarian-born composer Mátyás Seiber; German composer Günter Raphael; Filipino composer Julio Nakpil; German composer Rudolf Nelson; English composer Oliphant Chuckerbutty; Russian composer Mischa Bakaleinikoff; African-American composer Clarence Cameron White; Australian-born composer Alfred Hill; Hungarian composer Paul Abraham; American composer Isadore Freed; American gospel composer J.R. Baxter; Italian-American composer Alberto Bimboni; German composer Walter Goehr; English composer Rutland Boughton; Dutch composer Jakob van Domselaer; French composer Louis Cahuzac; French film composer Henri Crolla; German composer Joseph Haas; Swedish composer and artist Hugo Alfvén; American bebop composer Oscar Pettiford; American country songwriter & musician A. P. Carter; Hungarian composer Jenő Huszka; American composer Edward Burlingame Hill; Greek composer Dimitri Mitropoulos; Danish composer Launy Grøndahl; Argentine composer Carlos di Sarli; Czech composer and artist Jaroslav Doubrava; Australian composer Arthur Benjamin; Spanish composer Jesús Arámbarri; Danish composer Christian Debois; American ragtime composer Joseph Lamb; Indian composer Pannalal Ghosh; American songwriter Jesse Belvin; English composer Armstrong Gibbs; New Zealand composer Victor Edward Galway.

HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY: American historian Clarence H. Haring; Danish archaeologist Gudmund Hatt; German archaeologist Adolf Schulten; American historian Bertha Putnam; Swedish historian Lauritz Weibull; Norwegian historian Einar Jansen; Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson; English occultist and conspiracy theorist Nesta Helen Webster; Dutch economic historian and political scientist Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus; Japanese historian Tetsuro Watsuji; German archaeologist Edmund Kiss; Indian historian Anant Sadashiv Altekar; American archaeologist Malcolm Jennings Rogers; Italian writer and historian Edwin Cerio; Italian historian Federico Chabod; Greek archaeologist Antonios Keramopoulos; Peruvian historian Raúl Porras Barrenechea; Russian-British historian Lewis Bernstein Namier; French Egyptologist Maurice Alliot; British pseudo-historian Harold T. Wilkins; American historian Charles Upson Clark; Czech Egyptologist František Lexa; American historian Anne King Gregorie.

HUMANITIES AND LIBERAL ARTS: American linguist and translator Johan Andreas Holvik; French linguist Gustave Guillaume; Scottish literary critic Herbert J. C. Grierson; American anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber; American economist Leland Olds; American sociologist Samuel A. Stouffer; American philosophy professor Ralph Tyler Flewelling; American medieval scholar Hope Emily Allen; Swedish economist Erik Lindahl; Russian orientalist George de Roerich; Indian economist J. C. Kumarappa; American linguist George T. Flom; Austrian musicologist Robert Haas; American economist Beardsley Ruml; British literary scholar H. W. Garrod; British classical scholar Richard Livingstone; French linguist Joseph Vendryes; British colonial officer and scholar John Sydenham Furnivall; English linguist J. R. Firth; French futurist and philosopher Gaston Berger; American medievalist Sidney Painter; Austrian literary critic Leo Spitzer; British philosopher of language J. L. Austin; German literary historian Arthur Kutscher; Norwegian literary critic Harald Beyer; American literary scholar Thomas Marc Parrott; American anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn; Czech sociologist Inocenc Arnošt Bláha, British theatre historian W. J. MacQueen-Pope.

POLITICS AND LAW: Scottish politician Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl; American polemecist Francis Parker Yockey; Filipino jurist and author Claro M. Recto; British politician and writer Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet; Japanese author and politician Takeru Inukai; Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan; American lawyer and author Donald Richberg; American lawyer Manley Ottmer Hudson; Swedish feminist and editor Signe Bergman; Indian Tamil politician O. P. Ramaswamy Reddiyar; Russian revolutionary Cecilia Bobrovskaya; American journalist and politician Richard L. Neuberger; Egyptian communist Shuhdi Atiya ash-Shafi; Basque nationalist politician José Antonio Aguirre.

SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND MEDICINE: Czech mathematician Eduard Čech; Czech-American physicist Marcel Schein; American mathematician Oswald Veblen; German chemist Max Trautz; German entomologist Hans Bischoff; New Zealand-born zoologist James Brontë Gatenby; American astronomer Frank Elmore Ross; American electrical engineer Samuel H. Caldwell; Austrian-British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein; British forester and entomologist Edward Percy Stebbing; Russian-German mathematician Oskar Anderson; American physicist August Raspet; American geologist Louis Day; Austrian botanist Theodor Karl Just; Czech archaeologist and palaeontologist Karel Absolon; British astrophysicist F. J. M. Stratton; French physicist Maurice de Broglie; German astronomer August Kopff; New Zealand physicist John Angus Erskine; Indian zoologist C. R. Narayan Rao; German physicist Ernst Gehrcke; German neurologist Karl Kleist; French mathematician Victor Thébault; American botanist Ivan Murray Johnston; German-born psychologist Erich Neumann; Brazilian neurologist Antônio Austregésilo; Dutch astronomer and Marxist Antonie Pannekoek; Scottish mathematician Sheila Scott Macintyre; Hungarian-born surgeon Max Thorek; Swedish botanist Arthur Maillefer; British mathematician J. H. C. Whitehead; British-American physicist Kenneth Mees; Russian physicist Abram Ioffe; German chemist Walter Noddack; French mathematician Georges Darmois; American neurologist William Gordon Lennox; Japanese mathematician Teiji Takagi; American astronomer Carl Keenan Seyfert; British physicist Herbert Wakefield Banks Skinner; British botanist William Henry Lang; American astrophysicist Frederick C. Leonard; American marine biologist Paul Bartsch; Belarussian astronomer Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov; German engineer Erich Bachem; French engineer Georges Claude; Hungarian-born psychologist Andras Angyal; British geologist Gertrude Elles; German physicist Max von Laue; Japanese physicist Ukichiro Nakaya; Anglo-Indian naturalist Stanley Henry Prater; German physicist Werner Meyer-Eppler; Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum; British florist Constance Spry; Russian geologist Nikolay Shatsky; Japanese mathematician Hidehiko Yamabe; Dutch physicist Wander Johannes de Haas; Italian-born aviation engineer Giuseppe Mario Bellanca; Russian-American biochemist Aaron Bodansky; English environmentalist George Stapledon; chemist Maria Bakunin; American psychologist David Seabury; Spanish zoologist Ángel Cabrera; American biologist Edward Loranus Rice; Scottish geologist John Baird Simpson; English astronomer Harold Spencer Jones; Danish astronomer Julie Vinter Hansen; Austrian-Argentinian psychoanalyst Heinrich Racker; German entomologist Hermann Schmitz; British botanist William Lawrence Balls; German zoologist August Thienemann; Italian mathematician Carlo Emilio Bonferroni; Welsh astronomer Hugh Percy Wilkins; Hungarian-born psychologist David Rapaport; Indian mathematician Ramaswamy S. Vaidyanathaswamy; American mathematician Arthur Milgram; American astronomer Ralph Elmer Wilson; American chemist Hermann Irving Schlesinger; Finnish botanist Alvar Palmgren; British botanist Agnes Arber; Russian-Swiss pharmacologist Anton Gordonoff.

United Front in the United Kingdom

A who's who of British cultural institutions lay down a challenge, if a rather timid one, to the gatekeepers of that country's copyright laws:

Sir, Proposed amendments to the Orphan Works Clause 42 (works with no known copyright owner) of the Digital Economy Bill will pose one of the greatest barriers to mass digitisation of content by the UK’s leading national institutions. We must seek to retain the Government’s draft clause to provide the UK with the world’s best solution to unlocking vast amounts of our collections for the nation.

One example of orphan works are the thousands of photographs of British servicemen during the First and Second World Wars held by the British Library. These photographs have enormous value to researchers but there is no way of tracing the rights owner — which in turn means the photographs cannot be digitised and made accessible. Other examples of orphan works held by libraries, archives, museums and galleries in this country include oral histories, personal letters, films and drawings.

A who's who of the usual suspects respond with the usual kneejerkery.