Copyright Matters Event Celebrates the Public Domain
Issue No. 738 - December 21, 2018
On January 1, 2019, works will enter the public domain in the United States for the first time in twenty years. The U.S. Copyright Office’s Copyright Matters event series is honoring this milestone by hosting “The Public Domain: Celebrating the Lifecycle of Copyright.” The event will take place January 16, 2019, 10:30 a.m.–noon in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress.
This event will focus on works entering the public domain in 2019 and how they can be used by creators. Three creators will present works they have made based on public domain works and will provide an overview of their creative process. They also will discuss what the public domain is and how it has changed since the internet.
The Metropolitan School of the Arts Advanced Choir will perform selections of material in the public domain. The eight students in this exclusive group are mostly music theater-focused, studying voice, dance, and theater in a conservatory style performance arts program.
The Copyright Matters lecture series is a community forum of the U.S. Copyright Office that discusses the practical implications of copyright law in the twenty-first century, provides education and training to the staff of the U.S. Copyright Office, and offers programming for the public. A wide range of invited speakers—including Congressional leaders, authors and performers, company representatives, legal scholars, and Copyright Office staff—have delivered presentations on issues of topical importance since the series started in 2011. Lectures and events take place at the historic Library of Congress and include discussions on issues such as authorship, copyright registration, marketplace developments, fair use, international norm setting, copyright enforcement, and other issues related to copyright law in the digital age.
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