On New Year’s Day, creative works from 1923 entered the public domain. That includes books, movies and the music from the era.
U.S. copyright law has evolved over time, but as it stands now, items enter the public domain 70 years after the creator dies. Or, for works owned by corporations, like Disney or Pixar, the copyright lasts for 95 years.
To talk more about this, The Show spoke with Jennifer Jenkins. She teaches intellectual property law at Duke Law School and is the director for the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
