“Nearly a century ago, the publisher Alfred A. Knopf released a slim book of spiritual fables by an obscure poet and painter named Kahlil Gibran. Knopf had modest expectations…Much to his surprise, the book — titled The Prophet — took off. Until now, the publishing house that still bears Knopf’s name has held the North American copyright on the title. But that will change on Jan. 1, when The Prophet enters the public domain.” A. Alter, The New York Times

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Excerpt: New Life for Old Classics as Their Copyrights Run Out, A. Alter, The New York Times

“… works by thousands of other artists and writers, including Marcel Proust, Willa Cather, D. H. Lawrence, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton, P. G. Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield, Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens [will also enter the public domain].

This coming year marks the first time in two decades that a large body of copyrighted works will lose their protected status — a shift that will have profound consequences for publishers and literary estates, which stand to lose both money and creative control.

But it will also be a boon for readers, who will have more editions to choose from, and for writers and other artists who can create new works based on classic stories without getting hit with an intellectual property lawsuit…The sudden deluge of available works traces back to legislation Congress passed in 1998, which extended copyright protections by 20 years. The law reset the copyright term for works published from 1923 to 1977 — lengthening it from 75 years to 95 years after publication — essentially freezing their protected status.

Now that the term extension has run out, the spigot has been turned back on. Each January will bring a fresh crop of novels, plays, music and movies into the public domain. ‘Eventually, these books belong to the people,’ said James L. W. West III, a Fitzgerald scholar. ‘We can have new attempts to edit and reinterpret all of these iconic texts.’

Once books become part of the public domain, anyone can sell a digital, audio or print edition on Amazon. Theater and film producers can adapt the works into movies, plays and musicals without having to secure rights. Rival publishing houses can issue new print editions, and scholars can publish new annotated versions and interpretations.

It’s difficult to say exactly how many works will enter the public domain this January, because some authors and publishers allowed their copyright to lapse, and some foreign-language books first published overseas in 1923 may remain under copyright for now, like Felix Salten’s Bambi…Some publishers and the writers’ heirs fear that losing copyright protections will lead to inferior editions with typos and other errors, and to derivative works that damage the integrity of iconic stories.

Still, many scholars and legal experts argue that American copyright law, which is mind-numbingly complex, has skewed toward enriching companies and the heirs of writers and artists at the expense of the public…Publishers often stop printing books that aren’t selling, but still retain the copyright, so no one else can release new editions. Once the books enter the public domain, a wider variety of new editions become available again, filling in a hole in the public and cultural record.

Legacy publishers are also snapping up newly available works. Penguin Classics is releasing new editions of Cane, [and] Gibran’s The Prophet.Vintage Classics is publishing a new edition of Robert Frost’s New Hampshire.”