Happy New Year! And happy Public Domain Day 2020!

01 Jan 2020

There's lot's to celebrate on New Year's Day/Public Domain Day!

While you revel in the New Year’s Day public holiday, take a moment to think about all the new things that entered the public domain today. It will still be another six years before most published works start entering the public domain again thanks to the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) (for more on this see one of our older blog posts), but the changes to the copyright term that came in with the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Act 2017 means that for only the second time in nearly 15 years a range of new things entered the public domain today.

The new materials in the public domain this year will be unpublished works with authors who died in 1949, or orphan works (i.e. works with no known author) created in 1949. Here’s a sample:

Artist sketches and studies by recognised surrealist Australian artist Peter Purves Smith, such as the two featured. One is an artist study for The pleading butcher (1948) and the other is a study for The pond (1940). While he only produced a small number of paintings before he died, Smith’s sketches, studies and painting are held in notable collections including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA), the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and state collections in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. His works are also held by the Heide Museum of Modern Art and the National Portrait Gallery.

An artist study by Peter Purves Smith for his surrealist painting 'The pleading butcher' (1948). It features portrays two entwined figures merging into one; a large woman in a green dress embracing a butcher in a blue-striped apron.

Image: no title (artist sketch for The pleading butcher (1948)), Peter Purves Smith. Public domain. View full attribution information.

An artist study by Peter Purves Smith for his surrealist painting ‘The pond' (1940). It features a pond in the middle of the sketch. On the water are many model sailing ships. Around the outside of the pond are numerous adults, children and dogs. In the background is a number of trees and buildings.

Image: no title (artist study for The pond (1940)), Peter Purves Smith. Public domain. View full attribution information.

The letters of Australian politician, feminist and suffragist Vida Goldstein who ran as an independent candidate for the Senate in 1903, making her one of the first four women in the British Empire to be nominated and to stand for election to a national parliament. While she was not elected, she worked tirelessly advocating for “the moral and legal status of women” through her papers and organisations such as the Women’s Political Association (W.P.A.) advocating. This is just one page or one letter, but a powerful message.

A page of a letter to Mrs Martyn penned by Vida Goldstein in 1944. In the letter Vida Goldstein advocates for "the moral and legal status of women" and expresses concern that suffrage is not a more important issue for women she has met.

Image: a page of a letter written by Vida Goldstein in 1944. Public domain. View full attribution information.

The Lotus Flower poem by Roderic Quinn, a leading Australian poet in his day. While much of his works were published (and so a different copyright duration rule applies), The Lotus Flower is a beautiful handmade (and thereby unpublished) booklet. It has hard cloth covers and simply but elegant pages featuring prose by Quinn surrounded by watercolours and and illustrations by watercolourist J J Hilder. Both the vivid verse and the stunning illustrations are the public domain – Quinn died in 1949 and Hilder in 1916.

The cover of ‘The Lotus Flower’ (no date) by Roderic Quinn (author) and J J Hilder (illustrator). The handmade book includes cream coloured cloth coverings over hard covers with the title, author’s name and illustrator’s name written in hand lettering. It is bound and tied with a brown ribbon. The words "The Lotus Flower by Roderice Quinn. Illustrated by J J Hilder" appear in brown ink in the top right-hand corner. The first letter of each word is coloured red.

Image: The front cover of The Lotus Flower (no date), Roderic Quinn (author) and J J Hilder (illustrator). Public domain. View full attribution information.

The first page of verse of ‘The Lotus Flower’ (no date) Roderic Quinn (author) and J J Hilder (illustrator). The stanza reads: "All the heights of the high shores gleam/Red and gold at the sunset hour:/There comes the spell of a magic dream/And the Harbour seems a Lotus Flower:" The text is displayed in the middle of the page. The text is hand written in brown ink. The first letter of each sentence is coloured red. The stanza is bounded by a brown ink box. Around that is another box in which three panels of illustration feature lotus plants with several white blooms. Along the top is a watercolour painting of a harbour with buildings on the shore in the background.

Image: The first page of verse of The Lotus Flower (no date), Roderic Quinn (author) and J J Hilder (illustrator). Public domain. View full attribution information.

Of course, there’s a lot of other unpublished material not yet digitised that also fell into the public domain: such as artist sketches, watercolours and photos by Theodora Ester Cowan, the “first Australia-born female sculptor” and the letters and papers of author and journalist Ada Augusta Holman, wife of former Premier of New South Wales William Arthur Holman. Hopefully they will be digitised and available online soon.

Not sure how this public domain thing works? Take a look at our fact sheets. They include a rundown of the 2017 changes, a summary of how the law works now, and even flowcharts to help you work out whether something is in the public domain.

Cross-posted to the ADA blog.

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