Happy Public Domain Day 2024 from Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. To read more about the public domain, visit https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2024.

On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 entered the US public domain, where they are free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Langston Hughes’ The Weary Blues, and Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope. There are scores of silent films—including titles featuring Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo, famous Broadway songs, and well-known jazz standards. But that’s not all.

Learn more at https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/. #publicdomainday

January 1, 2021 is Public Domain Day, when copyrighted works from 1925 be free for all to use and build upon. Find out what’s entering the public domain in the US, and why it matters.

A panel on Blockchain, smart contracts and their implications for the music industry and music copyright law. The panel features Jesse Grushack, founder of Blockchain-based music distribution platform Ujo Music, Nina Kilbride, Head of Legal Engineering at Monax Industries, and Professors Jennifer Jenkins (Law School) and Cam Harvey (Fuqua). The panelists discuss emerging Blockchain technologies and how their implementation in the music industry can solve various industry-wide problems.

Co-sponsored by the Duke Law & Entrepreneurship Society and the Duke Blockchain Lab.

A graphic novel covering 2000 years of musical borrowing and regulation, from Plato to rap, by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins. Available at https://law.duke.edu/musiccomic/

Paul Goldstein, Stella W. and Ira S. Lillick Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, delivers the Annual Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property, entitled "The Americanization of Global Copyright Norms." A globally recognized expert on intellectual property law, Goldstein is the author of an influential four-volume treatise on U.S. copyright law and a one-volume treatise on international copyright law, as well as leading casebooks on intellectual property and international intellectual property.

Public Domain Day, which falls on January 1st, is intended to be a celebration of copyright expiration, a day when notable works enter the public domain. In 2014, Public Domain Day in Canada saw the writings of Robert Frost, W.E.B. Du Bois, C.S. Lewis, Sylvia Plath, and Aldous Huxley became public works, free for anyone to use and build upon. However, because of copyright extensions passed by the U.S. Congress, no published works entered the U.S. public domain in 2014, and nothing will until 2019.

Join author/activist Rebecca MacKinnon and Professor James Boyle, for an exciting discussion about the expanding struggle for control over the Internet and the implications for civil liberties, privacy and democracy both in the U.S. and worldwide. MacKinnon is the author of the new book, Consent of the Networked: The World Wide Struggle for Internet Freedom. Previously CNN Bureau Chief in Beijing and Tokyo, she is the co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices, an expert on Chinese Internet censorship, and presented at TEDGlobal 2011.

Jennifer Jenkins welcomes the speakers and audience ; Neil Netanel gives a keynote address, "Copyright's Paradox for Freedom of Expression: Engine or Brake?" ; Neil Siegel provides commentary in response.

Neil Netanel: Arnold, White & Durkee Centennial Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Jennifer Jenkins introduces the speakers. James Boyle speaks followed by a response from Jerome Reichman.

Recorded on March 21, 2009.

Conference title: No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment (2009)

Appearing: Jennifer Jenkins (Duke Law), host/introductions ; James Boyle (Duke Law), speaker ; Jerome Reichman (Duke Law), speaker.

Profs. Jefferson Powell and David Lange each provide responses to the other speakers on the topic of their book. Jennifer Jenkins makes closing comments, and then all the speakers gather on stage to take questions from the audience.

Recorded on March 21, 2009.

Conference title: No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment (2009)

Appearing: Jennifer Jenkins (Duke Law), host/introductions and closing commentary ; Jefferson Powell (Duke Law), speaker ; David Lange (Duke Law), speaker.

Professor James Boyle describes the history of a single song - protesting the government's inept response after Hurricane Katrina - and its century-old lineage in the work of Kanye West, Ray Charles, and others. Each borrowed from others, yet they borrowed in different ways, with different legal rules, in different musical cultures. At the end, we can sense how future music may be shaped and what our musical culture may give up in the process. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Recorded on: Nov. 24, 2008

Professor Jennifer Jenkins, Duke University School of Law, discusses "Two Puzzles of Transformative Use" in this presentation from the Center for Study of the Public Domain's "Copyright Limitations and Exceptions: From Access to Research to Transformative Use" workshop. More information at http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/conferences/.

Recorded on April 12, 2008

Professor Michael W. Carroll, American University Washington College of Law, discusses "Policies and Tools for Ensuring Access to Scholarship; the Future of Open Access" in this presentation from the Center for Study of the Public Domain's "Copyright Limitations and Exceptions: From Access to Research to Transformative Use" workshop. More information at http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/conferences/.

Professor Suzanne Scotchmer of the Berkeley faculty will present the annual Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property.

Recorded on April 03, 2008.

Series: Meredith and Kip Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property 7th.

Appearing: Suzanne Scotchmer (University of California, Berkeley), speaker.

Information Ecology Lecture with Dr. Robert Hunt. Robert Hunt is a Senior Economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia whose research fields include innovation and intellectual property, and economic geography. In the U.S. inventions are an urban phenomenon. Why is invention concentrated in cities? Why are some cities more innovative than others? This talk will describe some of Dr. Hunt's findings. It is hosted by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain as part of the Information Ecology lecture series.

Recorded on March 07, 2007.

Professor Justin Hughes teaches intellectual property, Internet law, and international trade courses at Cardozo Law School. From 1997 to 2001, Hughes worked as an attorney-advisor in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, focusing on the Administration's initiatives in Internet-related intellectual property issues, Eleventh Amendment immunity issues, intellectual property law in developing economies, and copyright appellate filings for the United States (including the Napster litigation).

Part of the Information Ecology Lecture Series.

The Effect of File Sharing on the Sale of Entertainment Products: The Case of Recorded Music and Movies. Introduction by Duke Professor James Boyle.

UNC Professor Koleman Strumpf will discuss his influential analysis of the effects of file sharing on the sale of entertainment products. This event is hosted by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain as part of the Information Ecology lecture series.

Summary: Personal reflections on the development of intellectual property law with speaker Jonathan Band.

Recorded on November 07, 2005.

Appearing: Speakers: Introduction by Professor Jennifer Jenkins ; Jonathan Band (Attorney, Washington D.C.)

Recorded on October 24, 2005.

Information Ecology Lecture Series.

Appearing: Speaker: Professor P. Bernt Hugenholtz from the University of Amsterdam Institute for Information Law.

Professor Fisk will present her work examining the rise of corporate ownership of intellectual property in the nineteenth century. This work is based on extensive research into nineteenth century law as well as the practices of several large and small firms, including Dupont, Rand-McNally, and law book publishers, that employed people who created patented and copyrighted works. It argues that the rise of corporate intellectual property necessitates development of an alternative non-property regime to acknowledge and reward innovation by employees.

Prof. Pamela Samuelson of the University of California at Berkeley presents the Annual Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property. Sponsored by the Office of the Dean and the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Recorded on March 24, 2005.

Series: Meredith and Kip Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property 5th.

Appearing: David Lange (Duke Law), introductions ; Pamela Samuelson (University of California, Berkeley), speaker.

Part 2: The symposium focuses on cases where proprietary rights on research inputs are posing, or may imminently pose, obstacles to biopharmaceutical R&D. Many of these cases involve diseases that have limited market potential, either because the affected population is poor or because it is small. Hence the need to reduce costs related to licensing, as well as other R&D costs, is particularly acute. These concerns may especially affect genomic innovation, where the ability to "invent around" building blocks of knowledge may be limited.

Part 1: The symposium focuses on cases where proprietary rights on research inputs are posing, or may imminently pose, obstacles to biopharmaceutical R & D. Many of these cases involve diseases that have limited market potential, either because the affected population is poor or because it is small. Hence the need to reduce costs related to licensing, as well as other R & D costs, is particularly acute. These concerns may especially affect genomic innovation, where the ability to "invent around" building blocks of knowledge may be limited.

In 2004, Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain ran an international contest (Framed!! How Law Contructs and Constrains Culture, held in association with the Full frame Documentary Fill Festival) for the best 2 minute movie about the ways that intellectual property affects art-- specifically documentary film or music. We announce and screen the contest winners-- both Judges' Selections and "the People's Choice" from our website poll -- at this special event hosted by Professor James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins.

Recorded on January 14, 2005.