A friend of mine shared a milestone recently—reaching 20 published books (and lots of other things, check out T Thorn Coyle's substack). That mixed in my brain with thinking about public domain works. A.A. Milne's original Winnie-the-Pooh entered the public domain this year, a different sort of milestone, and one that got quite a bit of coverage at the start of the year.
COPYRIGHT AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
Copyright protects original works created today (in the U.S.) from creation, for the life of the author, plus 70 years. Congress extended that period of time several times under the somewhat vague Constitutional "...securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writing and discoveries." It didn't define limited times—originally it was 14 years with the option to extend. Now it lasts for generations. I could conceivably live for another 50 years, so my books and stories wouldn't enter the public domain for 120 years yet! It's been nearly 100 years since Milne's first Winnie-the-Pooh story was published, back in 1926.
If you're not already aware of it, a great resource for works in the public domain is Project Gutenberg. They've been working for decades to make public domain works available. And they provide books in a variety of formats, so you can download books and load them on your devices—including Winnie-the-Pooh.
It'll be a few years yet before the other books enter the public domain, so there are elements and characters that didn't appear until later which remain protected under copyright.
Benefits of Public Domain
Public domain works open up the possibility of new derivative works, such as new Winnie-the-Pooh stories, or the new stories and shows based on Sherlock Holmes; created by people other than current copyright holders. That was a big part of the coverage around Winnie-the-Pooh, because now Disney wouldn't have sole control of the story and characters in the first book, and other books in the years to come.
We've already seen some examples. Several recent articles shared the news about a Winnie-the-Pooh-based horror movie in development. Ryan Reynolds created a commercial with the character. I don't doubt that we'll see more creative projects in the future—of varying worth—but that's the wonderful thing about the public domain. It makes these intellectual properties available to all sorts of creators.
PERSONAL MILESTONES
I've met a number of personal milestones over the years. Earning two graduate degrees. Seeing my first professional story sale. Publishing novels. I'm always reaching for the next milestone, the next peak. I expect to reach some new milestones this year, including a new novel release. I hope to have details on that in the next couple months. I'm also looking to get more stories written and published this year.
What are some of your milestones? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for being a reader and joining me in the readinary life.
Best wishes, always — Ryan
*If you haven't checked out my Dead Things series, all the books and novellas are available on my site right now—pay what you want. Or you can pick them up retail if you prefer.