~73% of books published 1924-63 are now in the public domain

[adewade]

Hello Librivoxers!

First off, I just wanted to thank you all for all the work you've done at giving these works new life -- I've greatly enjoyed listening to a lot of what you do.

Secondly, I wondered if y'all were aware of this recent exploration in public domain works: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/01/80pct-pd.html

"Fun facts" are, sadly, often less than fun. But here's a genuinely fun fact: most books published in the US before 1964 are in the public domain! Back then, you had to send in a form to get a second 28-year copyright term, and most people didn't bother.

I haven't yet found a great way to search through these results, but there should be some gems in there!

Cheers,
A. W.

[TriciaG]

Yes, we're aware. And if HathiTrust makes these works Full View, or if they're offered by Gutenberg.org, we can use 'em. See our text policy in this post, pinned to the top of this forum thread listing: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=72912

[adewade]

Oh good!

[prosfilaes]

As someone who has spent sometime looking up non-renewed books, most people won't get that feeling from their samples. Most of the A-list authors and most of the A-list books were renewed. E.g. I did "A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies" for Gutenberg, but looking at fiction authors I know of and old fiction books at the used book store rarely comes up with anything.

[Jmbau13]

And only in the US if so, not everywhere in the world Just speaking up as one of those people who is not in the US.