the unpublished public domain

In an exciting development for scholars, after December 31, 2002, for the first time, under United States’ law, all unpublished materials will eventually enter into the public domain. Prior to the 1976 Copyright Act, unpublished works held a purpectual copyright under state common law. The 1976 Copyright Act brought unpublished materials under federal protection, while at the same time doing away with the common-law perpetual copyright. Like published works, unpublished works would be subject to a limited term, currently defined as life of the author plus seventy years.

To make the transition, however, and not have old unpublished work merely fall into the public domain because the author had died seventy-one years before 1978 (when the new copyright took affect), Congress gave the unpublished works an additional twenty-five years protection, which was then further extended by the Sony Bono Copyright Extension. If the unpublished materials was published before December 31, 2002, the materials retain their copyright until 2047.

This gave archives, libraries and creators twenty-five years to publish unpublished works. Part of my inquiry is to look into these activities--what and how much publishing of previously unpublished materials occured before the deadline, and if there has been a dramatic decrease now that the deadline has passed.

I am also curious about a whole host of questions that I hope to explore in the coming months.