Let’s be part of celebrating the yearly marking when, depending what country you live in and the specific laws there, the copyright of creative works expire, and they become available to the world as being in the public domain.
Technically, according to Wikipedia, Public Domain Day is January 1st, but as that article notes, since maybe 2004, various celebrations are planned later in January.
A big virtual event organized by a number of organizations is happening January 19, themed The Best Things in Life Are Free, named for the 1927 song by Buddy DeSylva ,Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, that entered the public domain this year (in the US).
Be part of this free, online event by registering ahead of time taking place (in your local time) 2023-01-19T21:00:00Z→2023-01-19T22:30:00Z
The moon belongs to everyone, so says the 1927 hit musical composition, “The Best Things In Life Are Free.” We agree! In January of 2023, a treasure trove of new cultural works will become as free as the moon and the stars, and we at Internet Archive, Creative Commons and many other leaders from the open world plan to throw a party to celebrate!
Next year, works published in 1927 will join the myriad creative building blocks of our shared culture heritage. The public domain will grow richer with books from authors like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Marcel Proust, and Virginia Woolf, silent film classics like the controversial The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson and Fritz Lang’s dystopian Metropolis, and snappy musical compositions like You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream.
Join us for a virtual party on January 19, 2023 at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern time where we will celebrate The Best Things In Life Are Free, with a host of entertainers, historians, librarians, academics, activists and other leaders from the open world, including additional sponsoring organizations Library Futures, SPARC, Authors Alliance, Public Knowledge, and the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Free as in freed from copyright! Let us know if you are attending, or if you are doing anything else to recognize, honor, the entry of copyrighted works into the public domain see the long list of works by artists from the world that are joining this song in the public domain.
