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Public Domain Profits.
Public Domain Profits
By Stephen Bucaro
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Copyright law goes back to the founding fathers who, in order "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, secured for authors, artists and inventors the exclusive right to their work for 28 years. In 1909, the Copyright Act allowed that after 28 years, protection could be renewed for another 28 years. In 1978, the law was revised to provide protection until 50 years after the creater's death. The 1978 law also extended previous unexpired copyrights for another 47 years.
To put it in simple terms, anything created before 1923 is now in the public domain. Anything created between 1924 and 1963 is in the public domain unless the copyright was renewed. Most of the time these copyrights were not renewed because either the owners weren't making any money off the work, or they just forgot the deadline.
Have you noticed a lot of TV commercials using rock music written in the early 60's. Why be creative when you can steal somebody elses work who didn't renew the copyright?
Another question - can we profit from material in the public domain? Yes, but you may need to be a little creative to do so. And guess what? Once you modify something in the public domain, you automatically have a copyright on the modified version - until 50 years after your death! Unless you're a corporation, then it's 100 years!
And some of that public domain material is high quality - from authors like Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, as well as well-loved favorites like the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Tarzan and Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alice's adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and thousands of others.

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