For the seventh year in a row, we’re running a jam to celebrate new works entering the US public domain. I’d love to see some IF submissions! It’s hosted on itch at Gaming Like It’s 1929: https://itch.io/jam/gaming-like-its-1929
There are a ton of great works from 1929 that are eligible, check out this roundup: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/
Very nice! I will add this to my annual calendar.
(My writing is too slow to enter this year. Next year, you bet)
I have a question about the copyright of translated works:
On the list it says that the (first) English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front is in the public domain now. However, as far as I know, the German original is still copyrighted (according to some quick research, copyright in Germany expires 70 years after the author’s death, which would be in 2040 in this case). So what does that mean in terms of adapting it into a game?
I guess, if someone were to copy-and-paste passages from the translation into a game, that would be okay because the translation is in the public domain, but if they copied from the original German, that’d be a violation of the original’s still-active copyright. But what about the characters? Are they still copyrighted as long as the original work is? And if so, does that mean that any game (or other work) retelling the same story with the same character would be violating the original’s copyright? Or do characters enter the public domain as soon as any work featuring them enters the public domain? Even when it’s a translation?
These questions are maybe more appropriate to ask a copyright lawyer than on an IF forum, but maybe someone knows anyway.
As far as I know (I am not a lawyer), the law that matters is the one where you plan to distribute your work. If you take the original German text of All Quiet on the Western Front and translate it into English, you can freely distribute that in the United States (because the original German is also out of copyright here), but not in Germany.
How does this work with the internet being so global nowadays? Great question! As far as I know, all the edge cases that creates haven’t really been settled.
Perhaps we should strive to only include works that we regard as globally Public Domain? I know we can’t examine the law in all countries but if we know we are going against copyright in the European Union(?) we should try not to give people the wrong impression that their works will be legal. NB: I am not an expert at all on copyright but would be sad to find out my game is not legal after publication.
That would set a very very very high bar and exclude a lot of works even older than these. There isn’t a legal definition of a global public domain, it’s just the absence of copyright protection. And there are always weird corner cases (like the lost Robert E. Howard stories which the estate managed to get locked down for extra decades in the US) which could pop up in some random jurisdiction.
On the subject of copyright and its ridiculously long modern duration, I’ve heard its both life of the author plus 70 years and 95 years from first publication… so, does it depend on year of publication and we’re currently going through works in the 95 years category, depend on weather the copyright is owned by a person or a corporate entity, or is it a whichever is longer/shorter situation? e.g. if a writer published a novel in 1935 and died in 1940, will it go public domain in 2030 or did it go public domain in 2010 to little fanfare? Or am I mixing up different versions of the rules?
Yes, it’s 95 years for works published before 1978, life + 70 after. (For individuals, anyway; for corporate entities it will continue to be 95 years from publication. But for stuff entering the US public domain right now, it doesn’t matter which of those categories it falls into, it’s 95 years regardless.)
I think it is important to mention that these are US rules, not e.g. European Union.
And there are plenty of things which fell out of US copyright because they weren’t renewed. The breakdown of why both Popeye and the later concept of spinach-fueled Popeye are PD in the Duke article is instructive.
While we’re at it, I’m 99% sure the “January 1” thing is just a convenience/marketing conceit, I think it truly is a 95 year clock, not “95 years plus enough time to get to Jan 1.” So for something you’re truly hot to trot to exploit, the copyright records are your friend!
For things after 1978, they may never enter public domain given the way copyright keeps expanding.
I did say “the US public domain” in my comment, but also as the US rules were the whole context of the conversation, I didn’t think it needed to be extensively disclaimed.
I mean, the last time there was the opportunity to extend it, they didn’t; that’s why things have been entering the public domain again in the past few years when for quite a while they weren’t. That doesn’t mean we’ve 100% definitely turned the corner on this and copyright will never be extended again, but this pessimism of “oh, copyright will just keep being extended forever,” while a common opinion in the 2000s-2010s, feels like it’s not taking recent developments into account.
While the duration hasn’t been extended again recently, rightsholders (large ones anyway) continue to enjoy not only ridiculous lengths, but larger hammers, legal or otherwise, with which to pound fair use into the ground: From the ridiculous DMCA, automatic enforcement systems, and attempts at extending trademark law to go where copyright hasn’t (yet), among others.
Edit: Didn’t Canada just extend its copyright last year?
So the earliest the Life+70 rule is actually relevant will be 1948, and then only for works where the author died shortly after publishing and maybe post-humorous publications.
And yeah, it’s pretty big that Disney actually let the mouse into the public domain, but I’m not convinced we’re truly out of the woods yet. Mickey might be iconic, but when was the last time he had a smash hit? DC(or whoever owns them) still has a few years to block Superman and Batman from the public domain, and those two are still seat fillers and there are decades before the likes of Star Wars, Dragon Ball*, Mario*, or Harry Potter* will hit PD.
*Which makes me wonder, what is copyright duration in Britain(most likely place for me to consume non-American native English media) and Japan(most likely place for me to consume translations of non-English media, both official and fan translated), and what does the US say about works never published in the US(yes, all of the mentioned works have US releases most of the time, but plenty of foreign media never sees official US release)?
I don’t think we’re totally out of the woods, to be clear, I just think there have been enough promising developments lately that it’s not a foregone conclusion that copyright will keep being extended forever and ever and nothing will ever enter the public domain again. Also, given the intent of the thread and the jam, I would rather celebrate what we’re getting now than doom-and-gloom about the supposedly-inevitable terrible future of the public domain.