“The Best Things in Life Are Free,” a song originally written by Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson has just entered the public domain.
Fitting, isn’t it? Now that it is public domain, this song is as free as it will ever be. That’s because the copyright on the work has expired.
Say that someone were to make a recording of a short story they’ve come up with. They speak it into a microphone and make an audio recording and they immediately own the copyright for that recording. However, in the U.S. it must be registered if they wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.
However, copyrights don’t last forever, and most expire seventy years after the creator dies. When a copyright expires for any creative work, it enters the public domain. The collection of all intellectual properties which are effectively public property.
“It simply means that the work is not in copyright. Most often it means that it is no longer in copyright.” Rick Anderson, a librarian at BYU, said.
The beginning of this year saw several major historic additions to the public domain. Among them are “The complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, multiple books by Ernest Hemmingway, and “Twilight Sleep” by Edith Wharton.
Perhaps even more significant is the inclusion of major films such as “Metropolis,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Ring” and “The Jazz Singer,” which was the first feature film to include synchronized dialogue.
With copyrights expiring from the early and mid-twentieth century, the public domain is now obtaining some items more familiar to modern audiences. Preserving those works gives audiences important insight into the culture present today.
“Some of the things that are entering the public domain now are maybe the start of that kind of mass audience,” Maggie Kopp, a curator of rare books at the L. Tom Perry special collections department at BYU, said.
