[HN Gopher] What's Entering Public Domain in 2021: The Great Gat...
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What's Entering Public Domain in 2021: The Great Gatsby, Music by
Duke Ellington
Author : danso
Score : 207 points
Date : 2021-01-01 15:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I'm sure this means Gatsby won't be taught in high schools
| anymore because that's a ton of money for publishers to lose out
| on if schools can just print out 50 copies for pennies.
|
| I'm not even mad either. No high schooler can possibly relate to
| that book in any meaningful way. Good forbid an English teacher
| picks a book palatable to high schoolers.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Do they not teach Shakespeare or early 20th century American
| poets either?
| Agathos wrote:
| It's tough to read Shakespeare without some annotations, and
| those are generally copyrighted. Which is one reason I have
| never been able to find a good free ebook collection.
| postingpals wrote:
| Aren't teachers supposed to provide the annotations
| themselves with their english knowledge?
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| No, not at 45K USD/year. We're lucky if they effectively
| provide those copyrighted annotations.
| Talanes wrote:
| The Great Gatsby was the only book I had to read in high school
| that connected with me in any lasting way. What I get out of
| the text has changed considerably over the years, but that
| doesn't make my high school self's interpretation less
| meaningful.
| treebog wrote:
| I read the Great Gatsby in high school, not too too long ago,
| and it instantly became my favorite book. I would guess that
| English teachers pick it because it's a short, fun read with
| lots of issues to discuss and lots of literary merit. I'm glad
| to see it's finally in the public domain.
| khrbrt wrote:
| A benefit if it being in public domain is a variety of new
| editions to teach from.
|
| Cheap paperbacks containing just the story and which cost
| just above the cost of its paper and ink. Slightly fancier
| versions with introductions by literary scholars. Thick
| annotated editions with every allusion and reference
| explained with lengthy footnotes.
| esturk wrote:
| Wow, the arrogance in this post to say all high schoolers can't
| relate to the Great Gatsby. Is this is just projection?
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| yeah I remember not reading any Mark Twain in high school
|
| "no high schooler can possibly relate to that book in any
| meaningful way" yes nobody has ever had messed up feelings
| about social status or unrequited love or _what are you talking
| about_
| wussboy wrote:
| Might it be because if the teacher reads the n-word out loud
| they'll lose their job? If they don't read it out loud the
| students will pester them until they do?
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Pretty sure GP was being ironic; they _did_ read Mark Twain
| in high school despite his work being in the public domain.
| ahelwer wrote:
| I thought you could read The Great Gatsby on Project Gutenberg
| for a while now? Or am I thinking of another Fitzgerald novel
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| There's some Gutenberg affiliates set up in other countries
| that host content which is not public domain in the US but is
| public domain elsewhere (Australia and Canada have some notable
| additions as a result of years where they didn't line up with
| US law). It looks like Gatsby is on Gutenberg Australia.
| [deleted]
| yardie wrote:
| You aren't imagining it. The Great Gatsby was in public domain
| for a few years until the Copyright Term Extension Act 1998
| added 25 more years.
|
| This created a complications because lots of classical works
| that were in the public domain had to be removed from sites
| like Project Gutenberg. Apparently, popular, long dead authors
| are supposed to support their great grandkids from those
| royalty checks.
|
| I wrote a school book report on The Great Gatsby from the text
| hosted on Project Gutenberg. And when I had an interest in
| looking at the text again imagine my surprise to find it no
| longer listed.
| vuciv1 wrote:
| here's a silly website that takes 1984 but replaces "Big Brother"
| with "Facebook"
|
| its a low effort gag.
|
| https://1984butfb.com/
| Samantha97 wrote:
| They didn't even read their own website or Ctrl f to find that
| they missed lowercase big brother
| xwdv wrote:
| Could be a bit more fun with a few other replacements and maybe
| tweaking the years perhaps from 1984 to 2024.
| crackerinchief wrote:
| Don't worry. When China decides it's too long, we'll change it.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| I was all set to expect my childhood to enter public domain
| during my adulthood. Fucking DMCA.
| robin_reala wrote:
| This has nothing to do with the DMCA. You're looking for the
| 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| accurate, though connected by lobbyists and beneficiaries
| danbolt wrote:
| I dearly wish creators inspired by _Star Wars_ in their
| childhoods could have reimagined it when they came of age.
| rriepe wrote:
| If we allowed this to happen, we'd have major motion picture
| Star Wars blockbusters that were basically fan fiction levels
| of quality. Can you imagine?
| Razengan wrote:
| Do you mean that's not what actually happened?
| Vinnl wrote:
| I was quite sure that they did mean that that was what
| happened, but looking at the number of other replies I'm
| starting to think that _I 'm_ the one that misunderstood.
| rriepe wrote:
| Same.
| nathias wrote:
| that would be a vast improvement on quality, I can't
| imagine them being worse than they are ...
| djbebs wrote:
| Im not sure why you think thats a problem
| danbolt wrote:
| Sounds great; sign me up!
|
| I'd love to watch a Star Wars movie with a budget under 10
| million.
| steverb wrote:
| You're in luck:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zCSSd8QCVk
|
| It's actually pretty great. For all the wrong reasons,
| but that doesn't detract from its greatness.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Yes. It's called JJ Abrams sequels.
| fckthisguy wrote:
| There still are a huge number of fan fiction movie
| projects. They just end up on YouTube now rather than going
| to Cinemas.
|
| If we're we're inundated with low quality fan films,
| Cinemas simply wouldn't screen them. At the very least,
| we'd have a chance to see alternative interpretations and
| tellings of stories involving some of our favorite
| characters.
|
| I'd rather see a passion project set in the Star Wars IP
| than any of the recent multi-million dollar films.
| enkid wrote:
| I think the above comment was implying that the most
| recent star wars movie(s) is fan fiction quality story
| wise... Which it was .
| dheera wrote:
| I don't get it? If you want to voluntarily put your childhood
| photos in the public domain you always can.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| The duration of copyright protection was much shorter when I
| bound childhood expectations. It was a copyright extension
| act of congress that monetized all the commercial art in my
| childhood into my adulthood. My parents did not suffer this
| legal abuse.
| Anon1096 wrote:
| Before globalization and huge logistical advances there was
| barely any way to capitalize on works in the public
| domain... your parents probably didn't benefit nearly as
| much as you may think. Also, calling this "legal abuse" in
| any way is just insulting to true abuse and detracts
| significantly from your comment.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Mr. Disney did alright with the stories published by the
| brothers Grimm.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Ah, yes, it was so hard for authors to benefit from their
| works 95 years after their death. Now it's so easy, and
| inspires authors to produce great new works even in
| afterlife.
| avhon1 wrote:
| I believe spacemanmatt was referring to the popular culture
| that was a part of their childhood.
| dheera wrote:
| Ah okay, for some reason I didn't get that when I first
| read it, thanks!
| ignoramous wrote:
| I think it would be beneficial for code (for software that's
| published) to be subject to these laws, too. Any one know why
| such laws apply to art but not to code?
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Well, is there code from 1925?
| ignoramous wrote:
| Public Domain laws vary by country. In India, works published
| 60 years ago enter public domain.
| robin_reala wrote:
| There's definitely code from earlier: https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Ada_Lovelace#First_computer_pr...
| shp0ngle wrote:
| And I think that is, indeed, in Public Domain.
| ghaff wrote:
| As robin_reala indicated, they do. This wasn't clear for along
| time and it didn't really matter because computer companies
| bundled software with their hardware; it wasn't something that
| anyone was particularly interested in selling independently.
| But this started to change and, over time, it was established
| that copyright did apply to software.
|
| (One reason why copyright might _not_ have applied to software
| is that it 's "just" a set of instructions. We're seeing this
| argument repeated at some level with the Google-Oracle tiff
| over APIs.)
| robin_reala wrote:
| They do apply to code too.
| calmworm wrote:
| https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/
|
| The actual list the article references... (and strangely, mostly
| plagiarizes?)
| SloopJon wrote:
| I had gotten used to that site showing what is _not_ entering
| the public domain, thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term
| Extension Act. (What a horrible thing to have your name on.) It
| 's good to have something to celebrate again. It looks like
| _Winnie-the-Pooh_ will be on the list next year.
| rgblambda wrote:
| Sonny Bono aimed for copyright to be in perpetuity. Now
| that's a scary thought.
| based2 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21930189 2020
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18801531 2019
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16966271 2018
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| mmhsieh wrote:
| Does anyone know if there are any rights around Bach, Beethoven,
| Mozart and the like?
| robin_reala wrote:
| Their original works are all in the public domain in every
| jurisdiction, but classically (hah) the problem has been that
| copyright is applied to re-set scores. Luckily, there are a
| good number of modern scores dedicated to the public domain
| that were based on scans of the originals. A good starting
| place is https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
| howenterprisey wrote:
| Is there any way to get a hold of the originals for titles
| like Rhapsody in Blue?
| robin_reala wrote:
| You'd be looking for public domain scans, of which there
| seem to be several from 1924 at https://imslp.org/wiki/Rhap
| sody_in_Blue_(Gershwin%2C_George)
| ghaff wrote:
| And, of course, modern recordings are generally copyrighted.
| dheera wrote:
| No, although I once recorded myself playing Beethoven and
| posted it on Facebook and the audio got muted by a stupid
| algorithm that thought I was violating some Sony recording of
| some artist.
|
| I don't know whether to feel honored that my playing was decent
| enough to be (mis-)recognized by the algorithm as a
| professional artist or sad that I got muted.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Standard Ebooks (courtesy of @acabal) has _Gatsby_ up and
| available: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/f-scott-
| fitzgerald/the-gre...
|
| For my part, I added two newly available non-Conan Robert E.
| Howard stories to our shorts compilation:
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-e-howard/short-fict...
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(page generated 2021-01-02 23:02 UTC)