Public Domain Day

Over the entire history of mankind, a great many true masterpieces have emerged - pearls of world art The entire population of the planet has the opportunity to admire, listen, and see them, but, unfortunately, they do not have the right to use them for any personal purposes, since all these creations are protected by copyright laws In the United States, no matter how many years have passed since the appearance of the work, and since the death of its author, any work will remain the property of this author until 2019, due to the peculiarities of their legislation But in many European countries, after 70 years from the date of death of the author of any work of art, his creation forever passes into the possession of the people That is, any person can write words to the greatest melody of a brilliant composer, turn the poems of any poet into a beautiful song, make a film based on any masterpiece of world literature, the main thing is that 70 years have already passed since the death of the author Since it is customary to count down from the first day of each year, it was customary to set the date of this unofficial holiday on January 1 Thus, January 1 of every year is celebrated as Public Domain Day The idea to introduce this day was submitted by a public figure from Canada, Wallace MacLean, in 2004 This holiday was also supported by Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons organization, and soon the idea was supported by many European countries and large companies Soon it was decided to publish annually a list of works that become public domain and the names of their creators This catalog was first compiled on January 1, 2010 Thus, citizens can know exactly which masterpieces of world art have now become publicly available, without any restrictions Of course, the copyright legislation of each country has its own differences, but despite this, this day is becoming increasingly popular At the moment, a website has even been created for this holiday with a complete list of all the creations of mankind, which are already in the public domain of every person on the planet The significance of this holiday is very great, since free access to masterpieces of art can give a significant impetus to the development of new directions and the emergence of works of existing genres of art It can also become a good tool in matters of artistic education of all nations and the popularization of art among the masses January 1 of every year is not just the first day in the calendar, but also the day when every culturally enlightened person becomes a little richer, gaining free access to truly priceless things