The Public Domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Materials in this category may be those for which copyright was forfeited or waived, has expired, or never were eligible for U.S. copyright protections (An example includes early phonographic recordings which were protected through state laws not through U.S. Copyright).

An author may choose to waive copyright protections. In these cases, you may see a variation of the following symbols.

This question is quite complex as the length of copyright can very depending on the laws existing at the time of their creation.

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

                       What happened in 1978?... The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act....yes Cher's first husband!

                       This act changed the length of copyright protections for newly created works.

As a result of the various laws, works prior to January 1978 are on a rolling schedule to enter into Public Domain and will become available 95 years after the creation. Therefore, published works from 1925 were placed in the public domain in 2021. Titles included:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
• Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
• Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time
• Franz Kafka, The Trial (in German)
• Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
• Always, by Irving Berlin
• Sweet Georgia Brown, by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard & Kenneth Casey
• Works by Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” including Army Camp Harmony Blues (with Hooks Tilford) and Shave ’Em Dry (with William Jackson)
• Looking for a Boy, by George & Ira Gershwin (from the musical Tip-Toes)
• Manhattan, by Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
• Ukulele Lady, by Gus Kahn & Richard Whiting
• Yes Sir, That’s My Baby, by Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson
• Stella Dallas
• Buster Keaton’s Go West
• Lovers in Quarantine