New life for old classics, as their copyrights run out

Source: Times of India dated 31.12.2018

Alexandra Alter

Nearly a century ago, publisher Alfred A Knopf released a slim book of spiritual fables by an obscure Lebanese-American poet and painter named Kahlil Gibran.

Knopf had modest expectations, and printed around 1,500 copies. Much to his surprise, the book — titled “The Prophet” — took off. It became a huge hit, and went on to sell more than 9 million copies in North America alone.

Until now, the publishing house that still bears Knopf’s name has held the North American copyright on the title. But that will change on Tuesday, when “The Prophet” enters the public domain, along with works by thousands of other artists and writers, including Marcel Proust, Willa Cather, D H Lawrence, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad, P G Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield and Robert Frost.

In 2019, a large body of copyrighted works will lose their protected status — a shift that will have profound consequences for publishers and literary estates, which stand to

lose both money and creative control. It will also be a boon for readers, who will have more editions to choose from, and for writers and other artists who can create new works based on classic stories.

The sudden deluge of available works traces back to legislation Congress passed in 1998, which extended copyright protections by 20 years. The law reset the copyright term for works published from 1923 to 1977 — lengthening it from 75 years to 95 years after publication. Now that the term extension has run out, the spigot has been turned back on. Over the next few years, the impact will be great, in part because the 1920s were a fertile period for Western literature, with the rise of masters like F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.

Once books become part of the public domain, theatre and film producers can adapt the works without having to secure rights. Rival publishing houses can issue new print editions, and scholars can publish new annotated versions. Free digital copies will also circulate online. NYT NEWS SERVICE