My Top Picks From Public Domain Day!

                Hey you, yes you! Did you know that you are now the proud owner of all of the intellectual property from 1924? And so am I. And so is your next-door neighbor. And so is your ex from ten years ago. And so is that bully that used to give you wedgies back in 7^th grade. (We mustn’t dwell upon them though, it’s been a long time and you should get over it.) Yes, Disney has allowed another year to slip through the cracks, so unless you live outside the United States and in a country with actual sane copyright laws where everything from 1924 went public domain decades ago, we’ve all finally got 1924 to work with. I don’t know how many more years Disney is going to allow this to go on. They’re obviously biding their time and playing a long game. Expect them to do something before Steamboat Willie gets on the copyright chopping block. Let’s just enjoy this while it lasts. And you should be enjoying this stuff. Take it. It’s yours. It’s ours. The big corporations don’t want us watching, reading, and enjoying this stuff. And they assume that we won’t, as long as they keep us distracted with their shiny new stuff. Don’t fall for it. And when The Man tries to stop anything from entering the public domain again, to take ownership for themselves our collective culture and heritage, fight them on it. Fight for your rights!

There’s a lot of books, movies, songs and art from 1924 I’ve never even heard of, but I plan on checking things out. I’ll tell you a few of the things I’m excited and proud to own the rights to now. And remember, you own them too!

Grampa in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson

            Oh goody, another Oz book! I get to be as excited as kids of the 1920’s, waiting for a new Oz book to come out every year. Except I’m too cheap/poor to actually pay money for something that I’m going to be able to get for free soon, so unlike those Roaring 20’s kids I’m waiting for the books to fall into the public domain one by one so I can catch them on Gutenberg.org. One day when I have enough money to throw around, I’ll get physical copies, I promise. Last year we got The Cowardly Lion of Oz. I plan on reviewing it eventually, but let’s just say I found it to be kind of like a bizarre fever dream. It had its moments, but I didn’t like that clown protagonist much. So, what’s this book going to be about? Someone’s grandfather ending up in Oz? Apparently not. You can read the summary on Wikipedia or the Oz Fandom Wiki. Sounds like another book where Thompson really wished she were writing her own original books, but since writing Oz books was the only gig she could get, she just shoehorned her story into Oz by introducing yet another previously-unmentioned micro-kingdom. To be fair, L. Frank Baum started doing this first (look at Rinkitink in Oz and The Scarecrow of Oz), so you can’t really fault Thompson for doing it too. Even though I’m working on my own Oz book (because public domain is so wonderful) it would be horrifying if those were the only books I was ever going to be allowed to write for the foreseeable future, since I’ve got my own original stories I want to eventually publish. From a writer's point of view, I understand why Thompson does this, and why Baum did it too. But Thompson usually does her best work when she’s using her own original characters, so maybe it’ll be one of her good ones. I haven't heard great things about this book from the Oz fans, but let me read and judge it for myself. Plus, we’re getting some John R. Neill illustrations as part of the deal that are going to be new to me, and are guaranteed to be good. Those are always the highlights and lighten up even the less-good Oz books.

            So, I wonder how on top of things people are going to be over at Gutenberg.org this year. I still had to wait about a month last year for The Cowardly Lion of Oz to get posted there. I don’t see that it’s been added yet, but it’s only January 1^st. I just thought whoever posts up Oz ebooks on Gutenberg would have gotten the PDF ready ahead of time this year. I’ll have to keep checking.

The Dream by H.G. Wells

            I need to brush up on H.G. Wells, so I’ll probably be checking this book out when it goes up on Gutenberg, if I remind myself to do it. If I leave it in this blog, I’ll remember. I read The Time Machine and War of the Worlds when I was a kid, and found them very fascinating. This book deals with someone from a future Utopia dreaming of living in Victorian England, and apparently going back in time to do so. The grass is always greener, hm? I wonder if this visitor from the future discovers that the past isn’t all its cracked up to be. It’s probably going to be one of those stories. Although it’s been done since, this book would have been one of the first to have such a plotline I’d imagine. It sounds interesting to me.

Girl Shy and Hot Water, both starring Harold Lloyd

Yes! Harold Lloyd! I love his movies! He’s the hapless, somewhat nerdy everyman we can all identify with. I’m hoping my local historic theater, the Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse, will show these and other silent films now that they don’t have to pay anybody for them. That’s the true way to watch a silent film, in a theater with organ accompaniment. Something that should definitely be on your bucket list if you’ve never done that before.  Back when I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, I went to the Tampa Theatre to watch Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last and had a great time. This was in the summer of 2018. But it’s just as well to put them on when you’re in the same room with someone who’s sleeping and it needs to be quiet, but you still want to watch something. This is when I usually put them on. When the wife and baby are asleep.

These have both been on YouTube for a while and I haven’t seen them yet, but now I’m going to set aside some time to do just that. I own them now by the way (and so does everyone) so it behooves me to do so. Funny how even though these just now entered the public domain these have been on YouTube for a few years, and no one bothered to take them down even though they were still copyrighted. Could it be that the mega-corporations that still own things from the 1920’s aren’t actually that bothered about protecting their copyright because old jazz music and silent films aren't very marketable or profitable (but they will still take you to court if you try to use it, just to make a few bucks), and this is why Disney and our other corporate overlords are allowing things to slip into the public domain for a few years until we get to the juicy stuff from the talkie era so that it at least looks like they’re throwing us a couple bones before they extend the copyright terms to forever and a day? Nah, I’m just being a crazy conspiracy theorist again, aren’t I?

The Navigator and Sherlock Jr., both starring Buster Keaton

 

I went on a Buster Keaton binge a few months ago actually, and wish I’d done it years ago. What a talented man. The only one who goes neck-to-neck with Charlie Chaplin and might actually have been better in a few ways. He does all his own insane stunts, so there’s that of course. I first saw Sherlock Jr. years ago on Turner Classic Movies, when I recorded it on a VHS tape for posterity, and I’ve watched it many times since. It’s one of my favorite silent movies, and now I own it. For some reason I thought it already was in the public domain. Well it’s been on YouTube for years, so it really might as well have been. And should have been. Now I can finally make that music video to Voltaire’s The Projectionist I’ve long wanted to make using clips from this movie. I just need video editing software, and Voltaire’s permission. Let’s work on getting the video editing software first (I do miss Windows Movie Maker). I need to see The Navigator again, by the way. I saw it once, many years ago. I’ve missed out on a lot of the longer silent films, I’ve realized. Whenever I’m in the mood for silent movies I tend to stick to shorts. Some of the longer ones I’m aware of I’ve watched maybe once if at all. But I’ll watch it. It’s on my YouTube playlist of silent films now.

Rhapsody in Blue

             

This is a nice relaxing song I’ve just now heard because I just checked it out while writing this blog. It’s a good piece of music. And it’s finally ours. I like to listen to jazz every now and again. I eagerly await someone to do a synthwave cover version now. Or a goth version. ”Rhapsody in Black”, mwahaha. Just listen to how old, crackly and grainy this recording sounds. It really shines a light on how ridiculously long copyright terms have gotten in the United States. My youngest grandparent, “Grandad” Dean Mann, was born in 1925, and he sadly passed in 2007. This is from the year before he was born and its finally just now public domain. For his entire life, and thirteen years later, this was copyrighted. Ridiculous. Oh finally, we get to own this little table scrap from the greedy billionaires. Thank you sir, may I have another? I think everything from at least before the 1960’s should be public domain by now. Maybe unless the creator is still alive and making a living on it. That’s how it would work in my world. Even that would be a compromise. Instead, movies where every actor, director, producer and staff member has long since died are owned by corporations that had nothing to do with creating the movie. Often times they just bought the rights from the corporation that actually funded it. Look at the 1939 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz for a prime example of that. Warner Bros. gets to go after people doing Oz adaptations for making the Wicked Witch of the West too green even though they had nothing to do with creating or even funding this 80-year-old movie.

Anyway, there’s a lot more where this came from. Quite a lot. Go ahead and look up all the literature, movies, songs and art from 1924. Wikipedia has lists. Go take what’s yours.