EPisode 96: Public Domain Day

(Music fades in)

Belated Happy New Year! I mean, it is still January. I know that my posting schedule has been more than a little bit erratic, but it’s because of a bit of a technical issue that I don’t want to talk about until I know for sure how it is I’m going to handle it. So just stick around and bear with me because hopefully next episode--in two weeks, I promise--I’m going to be able to explain what’s going on. But the short of it is that because this podcast is hosted on Squarespace and was started by a baby podcaster who did not know how to… not break an RSS Feed, there are difficulties. But you know, on a positive note, I have learned a lot this year despite it only being January, and I also found out something else, something about New Year’s Day.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

It’s also Public Domain Day. Unofficially, I imagine. It’s the sort of holiday that just happens to become a holiday when a simple fact of our existence takes on a greater importance through our actions and reactions. 

Public Domain Day is January 1st. Because the first day of the new year means certain works finally hit the public domain. To explain, entering the public domain means that a piece of media or other intellectual property has had its commercial binds to a certain creator either expire, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may otherwise have become irrelevant. Without those commercial binds, the contents of that IP belong to the general public to be used and reused as literally anyone sees fit. 

Yes, things get complicated when characters are also effectively logos or mascots. But intellectual property on the whole is fairly complicated, and I’m not going to go into all that right now. 

(Music fades out)

Hi. It’s M. Welcome to Episode 96.

(Music fades in)

Right now, I should also point out that there was an additional bit of hype surrounding this Public Domain Day. You see, as a default, there’s a rather substantial time delay between the publication of a thing and the entrance of said thing into the Public Domain. The creator of the thing is allowed to pre-emptively release it, but part of the reason for copyright in the beginning was to ensure that the creator of--let’s say--a book would be able to reap the profits of publication, presumably this person had a right to them and likely also needed them given the standard financial situation of most writers.

And that all seems well and good, but because it is a good produced by a profession that didn’t do much in the way of a pension for someone’s spouse and children, extending that financial right forward past the date of death for the sake of surviving spouses and children also seemed fair, especially considering the possibility that the creator could leave behind younger children--who had no means of supporting themselves.

But true to the entirety of the human endeavor, what starts off as a completely reasonable thing has become less so. And now, it can take about 100 years from publication date for a work of media to enter the public domain. For example, the big example, The Great Gatsby--published in 1925--just entered the Public Domain, to a great deal of fanfare. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I know I’ve talked a great deal about adaptations and sequels, and I’ve done an episode on The Great Gatsby, so really, I’m just hitting the same likely dead horse at a different angle, but I think it’s still worth drawing attention to because… Well, how often do we think about the public domain? I think the last time I did was when I was in university and trying to figure out if any of my English books were available for free online and legally because it was already in the public domain. 

And yet, the status of ‘being in the public domain’ is a fairly critical one. I’ve heard some people say that the work in the public domain is a gift to future generations. It ensures that they are not starting off with nothing as they go about improving their lives. And granted, this phrasing is mostly used in discussions of technology and patents, but in many ways, the same could be said about stories. 

To that end, let me point out the relative new novel, as in released in 2020, Cinderella is Dead by Kaylynn Bayron. This book takes place in a world that has dangerous fetishized and internalized the narrative of the actual princess Cinderella who died 200 years before the start of this novel, to the detriment of the young women who live there and then must essentially participate in a perpetual recreation of the Cinderella narrative. 

Creatively speaking, this is all the Bayron’s work. But legally speaking, the story of Cinderella entered into the public domain quite a while ago, making it possible for reimaginations of the narrative, like this one, to happen without the need to debate fair use or commercial rights. Of particular note is Bayron’s status as an emerging writer, meaning that in terms of advocating for herself, she wouldn’t have the clout necessary to push back if she were in the right and a right’s holder didn’t want to acknowledge that. 

The public domain is a space devoid of such conflict. Or it negates a good deal of them. And in doing so, it creates a wide variety of opportunities. Much like that novel that I really like and am working on putting together an episode about. I cannot recommend Cinderella is Dead enough, which is why I brought it up when maybe--kind of, sort of--there are other examples that would be a bit more grey than that one. Like the Pride and Prejudice Youtube Adaptation that happened a few years back. But not the point.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

There’s multiple works that have entered the public domain as of January 1st, but I mentioned The Great Gatsby in particular because of what could be done with it. And yes, I saw the tweets about a Muppets-adaptation of The Great Gatsby floating around on the internet, and I agree. Please, please, make it. I won’t even say my preferences for the Muppet-casting. I just want Muppets in The Great Gatsby. But it goes beyond that. 

Thematically, The Great Gatsby dealt with the matter of the American Dream and class structure in the US: things that felt relevant before the pandemic, but woo boy, did COVID-19 drill that point home. In many ways, Fitzgerald’s narrative structure is the perfect lens for it. Jay Gatsby has accumulated a fair bit of wealth, enough to have entered the higher class. Or their lifestyle. Or for them to enter his home and party. But Gatsby wasn’t able to achieve his version of the American Dream, a dream that was structured in such a way to take the dreamer’s desires into consideration and bake them into the final product. Maybe we as readers know that Gatsby’s dreams are somewhat unobtainable. After all, you can’t repeat the past. You can’t get your dream woman to say truthfully that she never loved her current husband. You can’t rewrite the reality of the present just because you’ve suddenly come into a large amount of money. The world around you is set in many regards. Instantaneous changes are not possible, and there are some things that couldn’t happen even gradually.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

To a great extent, we still put our faith in this American Dream, and/or we live in a social milieu that uses this dream as a promise or a premise. Hustle culture, to a great extent, is a part of this. Hustle culture argues that anything is possible if one works hard enough, and in much the same way, American Dream promised to reward hard work with whatever goal the worker had in mind. But hustle culture has… Well, in my estimation, one of the critical differences is the additional emphasis on work as the celebrated commodity in and of itself, which seems to sidestep the sort of issue Gatsby found himself in: that his goal was never achievable in the first place and was never in his control.

And yet, having attending a school that celebrated the ‘hustle’ before that was really a concept, well… well, okay, it was an academic culture rooted in masochism, let’s be blunt, I can tell you from experience and observation that hustling too hard shouldn’t be celebrated even if it’s for no other reason that the results aren’t going to be there. The physical body essentially has different batteries that need to be charged and recharged--batteries for things like food, hydration, and social stimulation. One’s mental health is worsened by neglecting these things, so it’s not only affected by the strain that’s directly being put upon it. It’s getting hit from all sides.

In the best case scenario, the rate of acquisition slows, and this is the best case scenario because it assumes that acquisition is still possible. And that’s a pretty nice assumption. One that point’s back to Gatsby’s quest. And all the problems therein. 

So it would make sense, then, to have a modern The Great Gatsby. Or to have a modern The Great Gatsby that lets Nick’s crush on Gatsby be a bit more obvious… I mean, I always read that something was there, but maybe that was just me. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And that also makes a great segue for the next point. Those books that have survived long enough for their entrance into the public domain to be both noted and celebrated likely speak to something about the human experience that could continue to be explored through updates and adaptations. There’s a reason why Romeo and Juliet became West Side Story. There were aspects of Romeo and Juliet that really didn’t sit well with modern audiences, but the theme of love transcending social divides speaks to what hopeful part of us still remains. The public domain has become a space where individuals can reimagine and renegotiate these texts--loosely meant--and their themes in such a way that helps us reimagine and reconsider our current day and age. The public domain allows for a more substantial growth of our cultural cannon. In a way that might not happen otherwise. Much like a patent, releasing something into the world allows other hands to work on and adapt it. It allows for improvements. Hence the celebration.

But like I’ve alluded to, the situation is complicated, which may bring up images of Disney because they find themselves in the less than ideal situation of having an intellectual property--i.e. The famous Mouse--being a key part of brand identity. In many ways, our relationship with stories isn’t going to completely fit in neatly within the in/out public domain map, but that doesn’t mean the space isn’t important or should be allowed to be sacrificed. 

But at the end of the day, I worry about the wellbeing of this space, and it’s inability to effectively grow. The time between publication and entrance is only growing because of corporate interests that--fair enough--don’t exactly fit in the standard profit model. But instead of advocating for a little side corner of rules so specific as to only apply to them, the critical resource that is the public domain is suffering for it, having come under frequent attacks. And at this point, well... I don’t know what to do about it besides making my small audience more aware of it. Yeah, I don’t have an answer so much as an imperative: that we preserve the public domain. For all of us.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

This has been a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. Thanks for listening! Find more information about our shows at miscellanymedia.online or follow us on Twitter @miscellanymedia for updates on current and future projects.

(Music fades out)