Introducing My Public Domain Project
In which I will start looking into the fascinating world of books and films from 1928, retellings, and intellectual property law.
One thing that has gotten my attention this year is how we’re now seeing more work entering what’s known as the public domain. After being put on hold in the United States for about twenty years, it returned around 2019, resulting in some notable work from the 1920s becoming free of copyright. Some of this work has included The Great Gatsby, A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, the first three books in the original Hardy Boys series, and the film Metropolis.
Yet despite the increase in work entering the public domain, not many people are fully aware of this or how this works. The way it works in the United States is that most major creative work remains under copyright for 95 years after publication. After that point, no one legally owns that work anymore, meaning that anyone can do whatever they want with it. This means you could easily distribute the work in its original form without having to seek the permission of a publisher or an estate, or you could recreate the work in any way you wish. Yes, there some limits with works that are parts of a series or that have been trademarked (something that will prove to very relevant next year), but people still have more freedom with that work than they did.
For this project I’m planning, I’d like to do two things. The first will be to look into some of the retellings of work that’s recently entered the public domain. I’m currently working on one of the first books I’ll be reviewing as part of this, which is Self -Made Boys, a young adult retelling of The Great Gatsby. And yes, I might get around to watching Winnie-the Pooh: Blood and Honey too. Even if it has a little to do with the original story, perhaps I’ll still get a good laugh over how ridiculous it is.
The second thing I’ll be doing will be looking into several of the books and films that should be entering the public domain next year, which will include most work that was released in 1928. For those of us who care about public domain, 2024 should prove to be a good year for this because a ton of interesting work came out in 1928. Yes, I know some of you are probably already aware of how the early version of Disney’s popular mascot Mickey Mouse will soon be entering public domain in the form of the groundbreaking animated feature Steamboat Willie, but there’s a ton of other stuff that’s just as notable entering public domain as well.
What exactly would that include, you may wonder? Let’s start by looking into some of these 1928 titles:
The House on Pooh Corner by A.A. Maline
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Laurence
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
Quicksand by Nella Larsen
Deluge by S. Fowler Wright
Yes, if you know anything about some of these books, you’ll notice how this list includes some titles people might not want mentioned alongside Mickey Mouse. However, we are talking about the 1920s here, the decade where notable liberties started being gained and many social norms started being challenged everywhere, and this was especially evident in the literature of the time. The most notorious of the novels published during this time was probably James Joyce’s Ulysses, which challenged both the conventional language and morals that were common in literature back then. The novel was banned in many countries at the time it was published, and in the United States, it brought about the landmark court case United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses in 1933, in which it was decided that this novel was not pornographic, therefore setting the standards for increased freedom of expression in literature in the years to come.
Some of the novels published in 1928 were just as controversial. Both The Well of Loneliness and Lady Chatterley’s Lover faced controversy over their themes- the former for its lesbian themes and the latter for the way it addressed sexuality and included what was considered vulgar language-which resulted in both novels facing obscenity trials in the UK. The Well of Loneliness, which was tried just months after it was first published, ended up being banned from the UK for 21 years (but was still published in countries like France and the US), while Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was tried 32 years after originally being published in Italy and getting banned in several countries, was finally able to be released unexpurgated in the UK after its own trial in 1960. And other novels such as Orlando and Quicksand, despite not facing similar controversies upon publication, still explored topics that would have been considered controversial at the time, including gender nonconformity and racial inequality.
As a result, even if some of these novels might not be considered as “great” as novels like Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury, they nonetheless explored groundbreaking themes and even paved the way for aspects of future cultural changes, resulting in them continuing to be relevant today. And given the recent increase in book bans in schools and libraries in the US in recent years, I’m especially interested in offering an in-depth look into the bans of The Well of Loneliness and Lady Chatterley’s Lover and how it might tie in with what we’re seeing in the present. Interestingly enough, the current controversy surrounding Disney and the state of Florida also has some ties into all this, and might be worth looking into to see how seemingly unrelated works could still inspire similar controversies, nonetheless.
And speaking of Disney, these are some of the notable films of 1928:
Steamboat Willie
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Circus
The Man Who Laughs
The Docks of New York
The Singing Fool (sequel to 1927’s The Jazz Singer)
The Fall of the House of Usher (two versions)
Street Angel
Now what was happening with film in 1928 was just as interesting as what was going on in literature throughout the whole decade, if not more so. In 1927, The Jazz Singer became one of the first films to include sound. A year later, Steamboat Willie became one of the first successful animated features to include synchronized sound and a fully post-produced soundtrack. Also, because few movie theaters included a sound system when The Jazz Singer was released, The Singing Fool because the first experience with a talking film for most movie audiences, as it included 66 minutes of talking and singing throughout its 102 -minute run time. Its major success (it was the highest grossing film of 1928 and remained the most successful Warner Brothers film for 13 years) signaled that films with sound were there to stay. Because of these films, more motion pictures began incorporating sound, marking the first major transitional period in motion picture history. It’s also worth noting that it’s most likely because of Steamboat Willie and all the lobbying Disney did in the 70s and the 90s to get copyright laws changed that our copyright terms are as long as they currently are.
What this all means is there is plenty of interesting work that will be entering public domain next year that you might not have been aware of, and I’d like to go over some of that work here. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll do this yet. I might do a couple in-depth reviews of certain novels and movies, or I might just give brief summaries of as many titles as I can. This will all depend on how much time I have and how much access I’ll have to certain resources that could be helpful for this project. Either way, I do intend to do something with all this, and if I’ve managed to help at least one person realize there will be more to next year’s public domain material than just creating your own Mickey merchandise or another possible horror monster, then I know I’ve done my job right.
Great project idea. A lot of public domain books end up on gutenberg.org and this is also the source for many of the free books in apps like Apple’s Books on iPhone and Mac.