From Duke Law “Center For The Study of the Public Domain”:
On January 1, 2020, works from 1924 will enter the US public domain, where they will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.
Films
- Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator
- Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy and Hot Water
- The first film adaptation of Peter Pan
- The Sea Hawk
- Secrets
- He Who Gets Slapped
- Dante’s Inferno
Books
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
- Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (the first volume of his “Parade’s End” tetralogy)
- Eugene O’Neill, Desire Under the Elms
- Edith Wharton, Old New York (four novellas)
- Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (the English translation by Gregory Zilboorg)
- A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
- Hugh Lofting, Doctor Dolittle’s Circus
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Ant Men
- Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit
- Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett), The King of Elfland’s Daughter
Music
- Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin
- Fascinating Rhythm and Oh, Lady Be Good, music George Gershwin, lyrics Ira Gershwin
- Lazy, Irving Berlin
- Jealous Hearted Blues, Cora “Lovie” Austin (composer, pianist, bandleader) (recorded by Ma Rainey)
- Santa Claus Blues, Charley Straight and Gus Kahn (recorded by Louis Armstrong)
- Nobody’s Sweetheart, music Billy Meyers and Elmer Schoebel, lyrics Gus Kahn and Ernie Erdman
(Only the musical compositions referred to above are entering the public domain. Subsequent arrangements, orchestrations, or recordings of those compositions, such as Yuja Wang’s performance of Rhapsody in Blue, might still be copyrighted. You are free to copy, perform, record, or adapt Gershwin’s composition, but may need permission to use a specific recording of it.)
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