Why the "Great Gatsby" is still not in the public domain

Next week, a new Hollywood blockbuster “The Great Gatsby” will be shown in cinemas around the world. The drama with a budget of 127 million dollars is based on the classic Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1925. This is a classic of American literature, which is held there in every school. The novel takes the 2nd place in the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century .

In connection with the screen version, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published a memo explaining why the novel, written almost 90 years ago, is still not in the public domain, and what generally happens with copyright in the United States.

The situation is very strange. Although the author Scott Fitzgerald died 73 years ago and hardly needs any incentive to create new works, The Great Gatsby is still protected by copyright .

“The Great Gatsby” will go into the public domain no earlier than January 1, 2021, and then only in the happy case, if the copyright protection period is not renewed again (see the article “The Eternal Copyright Returns ”).
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After the extension of the copyright term in 1998, in accordance with the Copyright Term Extension Act , not a single literary work published in the United States will be in the public domain until 2019.

Worse, even works previously freed from the bonds of copyright due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, under the new law can be privatized back .

The Foundation for Electronic Frontiers draws attention to the negative consequences of the constant increase in the time periods for the protection of property rights to copyright works. For example, there is an effect of the lost 20th century in the history of books , which is associated with a sharp tightening of legislation after 1923.

At the same time, the United States has been quite successfully achieving the worldwide unification of regulations in the field of intellectual property protection, so that the terms of copyright protection are extended in other countries.