Macdonald-Kelce Library Blog

Works now in the Public Domain - 2023

Works previously under copyright move to a "public domain" designation each year. So what is public domain (PD)?

In the United States, copyright law defines public domain as published works (novels, songs, films, scientific formulas, recipes, etc.) that are more than 95 years old as of January 1. All works that were published in and before 1927 are now in the public domain, which means they are free to use, share, and adapt upon by anyone. Why is this important? Many creative works are inspired and adapted from things that came before; this practice is a critical part of shaping our shared culture.

While not everything from 1927 and earlier fits this description, including unpublished materials and other exceptions that we won't attempt to explain here - copyright law is complicated! - there are many famous works that are now free to use. Here are a few of them:

 

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf; Julia Briggs (Introduction by)

Call Number: PR6045.O72 T6 1991, MAIN (2ND FLOOR)

ISBN: 9780679405375

Publication Date: 1992-11-03

Though its fame as an icon of twentieth-century literature rests primarily on the brilliance of its narrative technique and the impressionistic beauty of its prose, To the Lighthouse is above all the story of a quest, and as such it possesses a brave and magical universality. Observed across the years at their vacation house facing the gales of the North Atlantic, Mrs. Ramsay and her family seek to recapture meaning from the flux of things and the passage of time. Though it is the death of Mrs. Ramsay on which the novel turns, her presence pervades every page in a poetic evocation of loss and memory that is also a celebration of domestic life and its most intimate details. Virginia Woolf's great book enacts a powerful allegory of the creative consciousness and its momentary triumphs over fleeting material life.

 

The Jazz Singer

Call Number: PN1995.9.M86 J353 2007, DVD -- ASK FOR ACCESS

ISBN: 9781419856228

The melodramatic story of a Jewish cantor's son who aspires to be a jazz singer, despite his father's strenuous objections. One of the first talking pictures - 1927.

 

 

 

The bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Call Number: PS3545.I345 B7 1928, MAIN (2ND FLOOR)

Pulitzer Prize winning second novel by Wilder. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die." (Wikipedia)

 

 

Browse Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain blog post for a lengthier list of PD works.