On January 1, 2026, works published in 1930 in the United States entered the public domain. Each year, January 1 is celebrated as Public Domain Day, acknowledging the works that enter the public domain on that day after 95 years of copyright protection.
Defining the public domain
Copyright law is an attempt to balance the interests of copyright owners (often but not always the creators of an original work) with the needs of the larger community of creators and the public. In the U.S., copyright owners have a set period of time during which they have significant control over how their work is used (e.g., reproduced, distributed, altered, or performed). Learn more about copyright on the Columbia Libraries Copyright Information pages.
When copyright in a work expires, the work enters the public domain. This means that it belongs to the public—anyone can use it without restrictions. Copyright owners can also place works in the public domain, if they choose to, before the copyright term expires.
In the U.S., the length of the copyright term has changed over the years, as have the requirements for registering copyrighted works. The Cornell Libraries provides a useful guide on the public domain that explains when copyright expires for works created at different times. The Cornell guide also notes how works published between 1930 and 1977 may be in the public domain if they were published without copyright notice, or if the copyright was not renewed.
Works entering the public domain
Duke Law has compiled an exciting list of some of the works that will now be in the public domain, as have HathiTrust and The Public Domain Review.
Selected works by Columbia authors entering the public domain
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes attended Columbia University from 1921-1922 as a student at the Columbia School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry (source), writing for The Spectator under the pen name Lang-Hu (source). Hughes was miserable at Columbia. Facing racism on campus and financial hardship, he left (source). Hughes later became an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance (source). His novel Not Without Laughter was published in 1930, winning the Harmon award for literature (source).
- Read Not Without Laughter on HathiTrust or The Internet Archive
Black Manhattan by James Weldon Johnson
James Weldon Johnson attended Columbia University as a graduate student under Brander Matthews, professor of dramatic literature, starting in 1903 (source). The Mapping the African American Past Project, an initiative of Teachers College, remembers Johnson as “a leading African American writer, civil rights activist, and poet of the Harlem Renaissance.” In 1930, Johnson published Black Manhattan, an excerpt from which can be read in this Lesson about the African Free School (PDF), from the Mapping the African American Past Project.
- Read Black Manhattan on HathiTrust or The Internet Archive
Additional works by Columbia authors entering the public domain
- Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead (Alumnus (Ph.D. 1929))
- Individualism Old and New by John Dewey (Faculty)
- A Young Man’s Heart by Cornell Woolrich Alumnus (Attended)
- Five Masters by Joseph Wood Krutch (Faculty)
- France, A Nation of Patriots by Carlton J.H. Hayes (Faculty)
- I Got Rhythm (and several more songs) by Ira and George Gershwin (posthumous Pulitzer prize winner)
Celebrating the public domain
For those who would like to join a celebration about these and other works new to the public domain, the Internet Archive is hosting a Film Remix Context and two virtual and in-person events. Further information and registration links are below.
The Langston Hughes connection to Columbia is pretty fascinating, especially knowing how unhappy he was there.