Rare Book Monthly

Articles - January - 2025 Issue

January 1 is Public Domain Day

Freed from its copyright.

Freed from its copyright.

January 1 is an important holiday. No, I'm not talking about New Year's Day. There is another holiday that happens on the same day – Public Domain Day. This the day on which works whose copyrights have just timed out become part of the public domain. If it's a book, that means you can do with it as you please. You can make copies of it, publish a new edition, even sell your copies or new edition and you won't owe anyone a dime. You will have to pay no royalties to the author or anyone else.

 

That means the authors have received their last royalty checks, but don't feel sad for them. It is doubtful any such authors are still alive. Copyrights, originally limited to 14 years with a possible 14-year extension, have had their time limit raised several times over the years. Most recently, in 1999, the term for books published before 1977 was raised from 75 to 95 years. Unless someone wrote and published a book before the age of 5, they must be over 100 years old now. If they were 20 at the time, they would have to be 115. It's safe to say virtually no author was still being protected, though someone else that purchased or inherited the copyright is now out of luck. However, copyrights were meant to encourage writing by protecting the author, not the descendants.

 

The increase in the copyright term by 20 years from 75 to 95 years passed in 1999 meant no new books would enter the public domain for 20 years. In 2019, they started becoming public again, and with the term up to an already ridiculous 95 years, Congress did not try to increase it again. So since then, a new group of books have become public on January 1 of every year. This year, it is books that were first published in 1929. I would like to say it was a very good year, and there were some good books published then, but it's hard to think of 1929 as a good year with that Depression thing. It was a momentous year, and it led to economic collapse, widespread hardship and losses, and finally a terrible war. It was a horrible year, but it started bright and hopeful, and gave us some literature that is still read today, 95 years later.

 

Here are a few of the books that have been set free today. Copy at will.

 

1. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.

2. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

3. Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe.

4. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

5. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett.

6. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.

7. Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge.

8. Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck.

9. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.

10. The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie.

11. Letters from a Father to His Daughter by Jawaharlal Nehru [to Indira Gandhi].

12. The Secret of the Caves (The Hardy Boys #7) by Franklin W. Dixon.

13. Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cockteau.

14. Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger.

15. Passing by Nella Larsen.

 

Books aren't the only things becoming free of their copyrights this year. There will be free music too: Singin' in the Rain, Bolero, Tiptoe through the Tulips, Ain't Misbehavin', Happy Days are Here Again, An American in Paris, and Waiting for a Train (Jimmie Rodgers).

 

Recordings, however, are protected for 100 years, so the free recorded music must be 100 years old. From 1924 there is Rhapsody in Blue (George Gershwin), Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen (Marian Anderson), It Had to Be You (Marion Harris), Everybody Loves My Baby, But My Baby Don't Love Me (Louis Armstrong), and California Here I Come (Al Jolson).

 

Some films have seen their copyrights expire, including The Cocoanuts (the first Marx Bros. film), Show Boat, and some more Mickey Mouse films, after the first Mickey movie, Steamboat Willie, was freed last year. A couple of characters will also become free, meaning you can use them in your books or cartoons now - Popeye and France's Tintin.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale
    April 30th & May 1st
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) & Egan (Felim) artist. Squarings, Twelve Poems, D. (Hieroglyph Editions Ltd.) 1991. €1,750 to €2,250.
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  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
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    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR

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