In 1998, the US Congress retroactively extended the copyright on US works, placing public domain works back into copyright and forestalling the entry into the public domain of a great mass of works that were soon to become public domain; now, 20 years later with no copyright term extension in sight, the US public domain is about to receive the first of many annual infusions to come, a great mass of works that will be free for all to use.
Included in the 2019 tranche: William Carlos Williams’s The Great American Novel; Charlie Chaplain’s The Pilgrim, and Cecil B DeMille’s 10 Commandments.