Public domain seminar: a trailer

Brief Encounter popularised
Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
-- but would the film have been a
success if it opted for public-domain
Mozart, as Elvira Madigan did?

With the 1709 Blog's seminar on "What happens to works when they fall into the public domain?" exactly one week away, Professor Paul J. Heald has given us a flavour of what's to come. He tells us:

"The worldwide copyright term extension debate turns on empirical assumptions about what happens to works when they fall into the public domain. Some proponents of extension claim that public domain works will be underexploited; others claim that works will be damaged through overuse or misuse when they cease to have owners.

I'll be presenting the results of three empirical studies that track works before and after they enter the public domain. The focus of his talk will be on bestselling novels and music from 1913-32, with an eye toward the historically availability of novels, the very interesting market for audio books (including a human subjects experiment on the quality of audio books from PD and protected works), and the frequency of the appearance of musical compositions in movies".

If you've not yet registered, there's still time. Despite the short notice, we've already got 23 people coming, and we're expecting plenty more.

Registration and other details can be found here.