Q: At what age do movies become public domain?

A: There are three primary ways that creative works can enter the public domain under federal copyright law:

(1) The artist can expressly waive all rights in the work and effectively donate the work to the public domain;

(2) If the work was created by a government employee in the course of his work for the government, that work is ineligible for copyright protection; and

(3) When the duration of copyright protection expires:

I assume you're asking about how work ages into the public domain.

Duration of protection

The duration of a work's copyright protection depends on the year in which the work was created, first published/registered with the Copyright Office. The term of protection for works first fixed in a tangible medium of expression on or after January 1, 1978 is determined by Section 302 of the 1976 Copyright Act. For works published first between 1909 and December 31, 1977, the term of protection is determined by the 1909 Copyright Act. Another set of rules determines the term of protection for works created before January 1, 1978, but still unpublished as of that date.

Work published after January 1, 1978 enjoy the following terms of protection:

*Individually authored works:* Life of author + 70 years;

*Joint works:* Life of last surviving author + 70 years;

*Works made for hire:* Shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation;

*Anonymous and pseudonymous works:* Same as works made for hire unless the identity of the author(s) is disclosed to the Copyright Office before the end of the copyright term, then the appropriate life + 70 year term will apply. No work created under the 1976 Act will enter the public domain until 2048 at the earliest.

Works published between 1964 to 1977:

There was no need to file for a renewal during that period, and those works will automatically have a 95 year term.

Works published between 1923 to 1963:

The copyright endured for 28 years after either the date of publication or registration, then the owner could apply for a renewal term with the Copyright Office, which extended the copyright protection to 95 years from that original date of protection (not the renewal date). So, a work published in 1923, in which the copyright owner applied for a renewal, would enter the public domain no sooner than 2018.

All copyrightable works published before 1923 are now in the public domain (these works entered the public domain no later than 1997).

One wrinkle in this blanket statement is that the publication must have been authorized. Famously, the song "Happy Birthday" was published in 1912 in "The Beginners' Book of Songs" and again in 1915 in "The Golden Book of Favorite Songs." If you were relying on the blanket statement that, "all works published before 1923 are in the public domain," you'd have historically lost a lawsuit on that basis. The current copyright holders of "Happy Birthday" argued that these early publications were unauthorized. They argued that the first authorized publication of the lyrics to "Happy Birthday" occurred in 1935. Using either the 1912 or 1915 versions would therefore infringe on the copyright first secured in 1935.

Another wrinkle: if an original work enters the public domain, this does not cover derivative or subsequent works based on that original work, that may contain editorial additions. So, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is in the public domain. But that does not mean that a photograph taken of the Mona Lisa is necessarily in the public domain, the photographer would hold the rights to that photograph.