+ Copyright status of works* first published in the US Year of the first publication** Copyright status Before During –1963, without notice, or with notice but not renewed within 28 years of the first publication During 1964–1977, without notice From 1978 to March 1, 1989, without notice, and without registration within 5 years of the first publication Work has entered US public domain During –1963, with notice, and renewal During 1964–1977, with notice Copyrighted for 95 years after the first publication From 1978 to March 1, 1989, pre-1978 creation with notice, or without notice but registered within 5 years of the first publication From March 2, 1989 to 2002, pre-1978 creation If the author is known, copyrighted until the later of either 70 years or December 31, 2047 If author is unknown or corporate authorship, the earlier of 95 years after the first publication or 120 years after creation, but not before December 31, 2047 From 1978 to March 1, 1989, post-1977 creation with notice, or without notice but registered within 5 years of the first publication From March 2, 1989 to 2002, post-1977 creation Unpublished before 2003 (i.e. first published after 2002) If author is known, copyrighted for 70 years p.m.a. If author is unknown or corporate authorship, the earlier of 95 years after the first publication or 120 years after creation Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by the intellectual property right known as copyright, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. Works automatically enter the public domain when their copyright has expired. The United States Copyright Office is a federal agency tasked with maintaining copyright records.
All works (excepting sound recordings) first published or released in the United States before January 1, , have lost their copyright protection 95 years later, effective January 1, . In the same manner, works published in will enter the public domain as of January 1, , and this cycle will repeat until works published in 2002 enter the public domain on January 1, 2098. Works of corporate authorship will continue to adhere to the 95-year term following the 2098 date. Under current copyright law, beginning in 2049, 1978 and beyond works by creators who died 70 years earlier will expire each year. For example, if a creator were to die in 2002, their works' copyright would last through the end of 2072 and enter the public domain on January 1, 2073.
Works that were published without a copyright notice before January 1, 1978 are also in the public domain, as are those published before March 1, 1989 if the copyright was not registered before or within five years of the date of publication and no effort was made to add a proper notice to subsequent copies. Works published before 1964 also entered the public domain if the copyright was not renewed 28 years later.The Renewal Trapdoor
History
In the United States, copyright at the federal level began when the Constitution, proposed in 1787, took effect on March 4, 1789. Prior to that, several states had enacted copyright laws, beginning with Connecticut in 1783. Creators of works created after the ratification of the Constitution could receive copyright, while works created before the Constitution took effect remain in the public domain with respect to federal copyright. The initial terms were set by the Copyright Act of 1790 with an initial term of fourteen years, and a one time renewal of fourteen years from the date of publication. In 1831, Congress extended the initial term to twenty-eight years, but left the fourteen year renewal in place.
At the start of the 20th century, Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1909 which extended the renewal period to a term of twenty-eight years for a total of fifty-six years. From 1962 through 1974, Congress passed interim extensions that ultimately extended the total term to seventy years, but only for works dating from September 10, 1906 to December 31, 1918.
In 1976, the system was overhauled with the Copyright Act of 1976, which revised the term to seventy-five years from publication for all works published prior to 1978, and dictated that copyrights expire at the end of the seventy-fifth year rather than from moment of publication. The 1976 Copyright Act also created new distinctions between works for hire/corporate authorship and individual authorship; with individual authorship receiving a term of life plus fifty years after the death of the last surviving author.
From January 1, 1982, to January 1, 1994, published works from 1906 to 1918 entered on a yearly basis following the end of their seventy-five year term. Published works from 1922 entered on January 1, 1998. Later in 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act which further revised the total terms to ninety-five years from publication for corporate authorship, and life plus seventy years for individual authorship. All other nuances of last surviving author remained.
Works began entering the public domain again starting on January 1, 2019 following no further copyright extensions. On January 1, 2022, all sound recordings published in 1922 and prior entered the public domain. As of January 1, , all published works from and before and all published sound recordings from and before are in the public domain.
Public domain works in the U.S.
Public-domain literature
Public-domain books within the United States include a number of popular titles, many of which are still commonly read and studied as part of the English-language literary canon. Examples include:
Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Moby-Dick by Herman Melville Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells Ulysses by James Joyce The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Public-domain images
Thousands of paintings and photographs are in the public domain in the U.S., including photographs taken by Jacob Riis, Mathew Brady and Alfred Stieglitz.
Sound recordings under public domain
Sound recordings fixed in a tangible form before February 15, 1972, have generally been covered by common law, or in some cases by anti-piracy statutes enacted in certain states, not by federal copyright law, and the anti-piracy statutes typically have no duration limit. As such, virtually all sound recordings, regardless of age, are presumed to remain under copyright protection in the United States. The 1971 Sound Recordings Act, effective 1972,Sound Recordings Act of 1971 . and the 1976 Copyright Act, effective 1978, provide federal copyright for unpublished and published sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972. Recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are still covered, to varying degrees, by common law or state statutes.An exception to the 1976 Copyright Act's general abolition of common law copyright. June M. Besek, "Copyright Issues Relevant to Digital Preservation and Dissemination of Pre-1972 Commercial Sound Recordings by Libraries and Archives", CLIR Reports, December 2005.Non-U.S. sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are covered under U.S. copyright (for the normal durations) if the country of origin shares an international copyright agreement with the United States, and the work was not published in the U.S. within 30 days of its first publication. Robert Clarida, "Who Owns Pre-1972 Sound Recordings?", The Intellectual Property Strategist, November 13, 2000. Any rights or remedies under state law for sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are not annulled or limited by the 1976 Copyright Act until February 15, 2067. Preemption with respect to other laws On that date, all sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 will enter the public domain in the United States. The extent to which state statutes provide protection is inconsistent and unclear.
The Music Modernization Act was passed on October 11, 2018. The law mandates that recordings published before 1923 expired on January 1, 2022; recordings published between 1923 and 1946 will be protected for 100 years after release; recordings published between 1947 and 1956 will be protected for 110 years; and the protection for all recordings published after 1956 that were fixed prior to February 15, 1972, will terminate on February 15, 2067.
For sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, the earliest year that any will enter the public domain will be 2043,Sound recordings fixed between February 15, 1972, and December 31, 1972, but not published or registered before 2003, whose authors, not working for hire, died in 1972. and not in any substantial number until 2048.Sound recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, and first published 1978–2002, whose authors, not working for hire, died before 1978. § 303. Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978, Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, U.S. Copyright Office Circular 92. Sound recordings fixed and published on or after February 15, 1972, and before 1978 that failed to carry a proper copyright notice on the recording medium or its cover entered the public domain on publication.Public Law 92-140 (October 15, 1971). From 1978 to March 1, 1989, the owners of the copyrights were permitted as long as five years to remedy their omission without losing the copyright.§ 405. Notice of copyright: Omission of notice on certain copies and phonorecords, Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code (U.S. Copyright Office Circular 92). Since March 1, 1989, no copyright notice has been required.Copyright Notice, U.S. Copyright Office Circular 3, 2008, p. 1.
Public-domain videos Since the invention of video capture and animation techniques, thousands of films or videos have entered the public domain. Some examples include:
Television series A number of US television series have episodes in the public domain. Some were released before 1964 and without copyright renewal (such as nearly all of the extant DuMont Television Network archive); some were originally recorded before March 1, 1989 without a valid copyright notice; and some are works of the United States government.
Public-domain status of television episodes complicated by derivative-work considerations and disputes about what constitutes "publication" for legal purposes. For example, 16 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show are, because of expired copyright, in the public domain by themselves, but in 2007, CBS was able to claim an indirect copyright on the episodes by asserting that they were derivative works of earlier episodes still under copyright. The 1964 special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was published with an invalid copyright notice but uses copious amounts of copyrighted music and is loosely based on an original story that is still under copyright.
Public-domain films
Hundreds of American live-action films are in the public domain because they were never copyrighted or because their copyrights have since expired. These films may be viewed online at websites such as the Internet Archive and can also be downloaded from various websites.
Notable examples of such public-domain films include: Charade (1963) Night of the Living Dead (1968) The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) Debbie Does Dallas (1978)
Public-domain animated films
Hundreds of American animated films are in the public domain, including: