Have you ever stopped what you’re doing and appreciated just how wonderful the public domain is?
Casey PhillipsEssentially, copyright doesn’t offer indefinite protection of intellectual property. Once a copyright expires, the protected work, be it a book, a recording, an image or a publicly disclosed recipe – so not, for instance, the secret formula for Coke – enters the public domain and becomes free to use. The default period generally lasts 70 to 120 years after the author’s death, depending on the circumstances of its creation, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.
The long and short of public-domain status – and the reason it’s such an incredible resource in the Internet age – is that it affords us all instant, free access to centuries’ worth of books, songs and other content. No need to ask permission or pay Random House or the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for the privilege of consuming this content.
Why, you can even repackage a public-domain work and sell it yourself. If I wanted to, I could reprint a compilation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan” novels or Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry and sell them online, as many people have done. Public domain is the reason acting companies can present the works of Shakespeare without paying public performance fees and why orchestras keep the legacy of Mozart, Beethoven and Dvorak alive without cutting a royalty check. The preservation and safeguarding of humanity’s cultural wealth is largely thanks to the public domain.
But there are some surprising twists and turns in Copyright Land, and until very recently, if you ever sang Patty and Mildred Hill’s song “Happy Birthday to You,” you were doing so illegally. The Guinness World Records people credit “Happy Birthday” as the most recognized song in the English language, and many people probably assume it’s long been in the public domain.