When a work's copyright expires, it enters the public domain. The following is a list of works that entered the public domain in 2018. Since laws vary globally, the copyright status of some works are not uniform.
With the exception of Belarus and Spain (which is Life + 80 for creators who died before 1987), a work enters the public domain in Europe 70 years after the creator's death, if it was published during the creator's lifetime.[1] [2] The list is sorted alphabetically and includes a notable work of the creator that entered the public domain on January 1, 2018. For previously unpublished material, those who publish it first will have the publication rights for 25 years.
| Names | Country | Birth | Death | Occupation | Notable work |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Agate | Writer, critic | Ego | |||
| Tilly Aston | Educator, writer | ||||
| Joseph Barcroft | Physiologist | The Respiratory Function of the Blood | |||
| W. Augustus Barratt | Composer | Sir Patrick Spens | |||
| Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes | Novelist | The Lodger | |||
| J. D. Beresford | Science fiction and horror author | The Hampdenshire Wonder | |||
| Geographer | Les Confins algéro-marocains | ||||
| Tristan Bernard |  France | Playwright | Mémoires d'un jeune homme rangé | ||
| Jean-Richard Bloch | Writer | ||||
| Orientalist | Lessico italiano-turco | ||||
| Pierre Bonnard | Painter, printmaker | ||||
| Wolfgang Borchert | Playwright | Draußen vor der Tür | |||
| Angela Brazil |  United Kingdom | Children's books author | |||
| Óscar Castro Zúñiga |  Chile | Writer | Llampo de Sangre, Camino en el alba, Comarca del jazmín | ||
| Willa Cather |  United States | Writer | My Ántonia | ||
| Poet | |||||
| George Chatterton-Hill | 1883 | Philosopher | Heredity and Selection in Sociology | ||
| Édouard Chatton | Biologist | ||||
| Winston Churchill | Novelist | The Celebrity | |||
| Ananda Coomaraswamy | historian, philosopher | The Dance of Shiva | |||
| Aleister Crowley | Poet | Bibliography | |||
| Franz Cumont | archeologist | Texts and Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra | |||
| Petras Cvirka |  Lithuania | Author | Frank Kruk | ||
| Josef Čapek | April 1945[3] | Painter, writer | All About Doggie and Pussycat | ||
| Anton Denikin | Soldier, writer | Russian Turmoil | |||
| Walter Donaldson | United States | Songwriter | Makin' Whoopee, Yes Sir, That's My Baby | ||
| Hans Fallada |  Germany | Writer | Der junge Goedeschal, Little Man, What Now? | ||
| Irving Fisher | Economist | The Purchasing Power of Money | |||
| Desmond FitzGerald | Architect | ||||
| Henry Ford | United States | Business magnate | The International Jew | ||
| John Ulrich Giesy | Writer, physician | Palos of the Dog Star Pack | |||
| Victor Goldschmidt | Mineralogist | Geochemische Verteilungsgesetze der Elemente | |||
| Reynaldo Hahn | Composer | Ciboulette | |||
| G. H. Hardy | Mathematician | A Mathematician's Apology | |||
| Frank Heller | Writer | The London Adventures of Mr. Collin | |||
| Frederick Gowland Hopkins | Biochemist | Feeding experiments illustrating the importance of accessory factors in normal dietaries | |||
| Blanche Hoschedé Monet | Painter | ||||
| Victor Horta | Architect | ||||
| Albert Howard | Botanist | An Agricultural Testament | |||
| Ricarda Huch | Author | The Deruga Case | |||
| Painter and illustrator | |||||
| E.M. Hull | United Kingdom | Novelist | The Sheik | ||
| Pierre Janet | Psychologist | La médecine psychologique | |||
| Afevork Ghevre Jesus |  Ethiopia | Writer | Ləbb Wälläd Tarik | ||
| Elizabeth Jordan | Journalist, suffragist, author | ||||
| Pyotr Krasnov | Soldier, writer | From Double Eagle To the Red Flag | |||
| Painter | |||||
| Richard Le Gallienne | author, poet | ||||
| C. Louis Leipoldt |  South Africa | Poet | |||
| Philipp Lenard | Physicist | Quantitative on cathode rays | |||
| Physicist | Separation of radium C from radium E | ||||
| Hugh Lofting | United Kingdom | Writer | Doctor Dolittle series | ||
| Ernst Lubitsch | Director | ||||
| Manuel Machado | Poet and playwright | La Lola se va a los puertos | |||
| Arthur Machen | Fantasy and horror author | The Great God Pan, The Three Impostors, The Hill of Dreams, The White People | |||
| Karl Mannheim | Sociologist | Ideology and Utopia | |||
| Henri Manuel | Photographer | ||||
| William Moulton Marston | United States | Psychologist, inventor, comic book writer | Wonder Woman, DISC assessment | ||
| Anatole de Monzie | Encyclopaedist | Grandeur et servitude judiciaires | |||
| Yone Noguchi | Writer | The American Diary of a Japanese Girl | |||
| Emma Orczy | United Kingdom | Novelist, Playwright | The Scarlet Pimpernel | ||
| P. D. Ouspensky | Mathematician, esotericist | ||||
| Friedrich Paschen | Physicist | Ueber die zum Funkenübergang in Luft, Wasserstoff und Kohlensäure bei verschiedenen Drucken erforderliche Potentialdifferenz | |||
| John Henry Patterson | United Kingdom | Soldier, hunter, author | The Man-Eaters of Tsavo | ||
| Reginald Payne | United Kingdom | Illustrator | The Railway Series | ||
| Júlio Afrânio Peixoto | Writer | ||||
| Max Planck | Germany | Scientist | |||
| R. I. Pocock | United Kingdom | Zoologist | The Fauna of British India | ||
| Carl Adolph Preyer | United States | Composer | Festal Polonaise, Op.14 | ||
| Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz | Author | Beauty on Earth | |||
| Forrest Reid | United Kingdom | Novelist | Young Tom | ||
| Nicholas Roerich |  India | Painter, writer | |||
| 1879 | 1947 | Polish painter active in Georgia | |||
| Margaret Marshall Saunders | Writer | ||||
| . | Physicist | ||||
| Emil Schovánek | Painter | ||||
| Kathleen Scott | Sculptor | ||||
| Victor Serge | Marxist revolutionary, writer | From Lenin to Stalin, Destiny of a Revolution | |||
| M. P. Shiel | Horror and science fiction author | The Purple Cloud, The Yellow Danger | |||
| Andrei Shkuro | Soldier, memoirist | ||||
| Alfred Walter Stewart | Chemist, Writer | Nordenholt's Million | |||
| Alan Sullivan | Writer | The Great Divide | |||
| Flora Thompson | Novelist, poet | Lark Rise to Candleford | |||
| | Literary scholar | ||||
| Jim Tully | United States | Writer | Beggars of Life | ||
| Marcel Varnel | France | Film Director | |||
| E. C. Vivian | Writer, editor | Fields of Sleep | |||
| Sidney Webb | |||||
| Alfred North Whitehead | Mathematician | Process and Reality | |||
| Anna Wickham | Poet | Songs of John Oland | |||
| Émile Auguste Joseph De Wildeman | Botanist | ||||
| Almroth Wright | Bacteriologist | The Unexpurgated Case against Woman Suffrage | |||
| Riichi Yokomitsu | Writer | ||||
| Orientalist | Die Münzprägungen des Islams | ||||
In most countries of Africa and Asia, as well as Belarus, Bolivia, Canada, New Zealand and Uruguay; a work enters the public domain 50 years after the creator's death.
| Names | Country | Birth | Death | Occupation | Notable work | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J.R. Ackerley | Writer, editor | My Dog Tulip, We Think the World of You | ||||
| Ciro Alegría | Journalist, novelist | El mundo es ancho y ajeno | ||||
| Gordon Allport | psychologist | Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality | ||||
| Norman Angell | journalist, author, politician | The Great Illusion | ||||
| Tudor Arghezi | poet, novelist, essayist | Cuvinte Potrivite, Zdreanță | ||||
| Marcel Aymé | France | Novelist, children's writer, playwright | The passer-through-walls | |||
| Margaret Ayer Barnes | playwright, novelist, short-story writer | Years of Grace | ||||
| Vladimir Bartol | Writer | Alamut | ||||
| Frank Bruno | 1910 | Writer, cartoonist, boxer | Black Noon at Ngutu, The Hellbuster | |||
| John Coltrane | Saxophonist, composer | Giant Steps | ||||
| Isaac Deutscher | Biographer | Stalin: a Political Biography | ||||
| Julien Duvivier | film director, screenwriter | Sous le ciel de Paris | ||||
| Ilya Ehrenburg | writer, journalist, translator | Black Book, The Thaw | ||||
| Sidney Bradshaw Fay | United States | Historian | The Origins of the World War | |||
| Varian Fry | Journalist | The Peace that Failed, Surrender on Demand | ||||
| Che Guevara | Communist revolutionary, author | Guerrilla Warfare | ||||
| Robert van Gulik | writer, diplomat, translator | The Chinese Maze Murders | ||||
| Woody Guthrie | singer-songwriter | This Land Is Your Land | ||||
| Edward Hopper | Painter | Nighthawks | ||||
| Langston Hughes | United States | Writer | The Weary Blues | |||
| Lajos Kassák | Poet, writer, painter | |||||
| Margaret Kennedy | Novelist, playwright | The Constant Nymph, Troy Chimneys | ||||
| Joseph Kesselring | playwright | Arsenic and Old Lace | ||||
| Zoltán Kodály | Composer, philosopher, ethnomusicologist | Psalmus Hungaricus | ||||
| Wolfgang Köhler | Psychologist | The Mentality of Apes, Gestalt Psychology | ||||
| Writer, journalist | Reyles | |||||
| Douglas MacLean | actor, writer | Mama Loves Papa | ||||
| René Magritte | Painter | The Difficult Crossing, The Treachery of Images | ||||
| John Masefield | Poet, novelist | The Everlasting Mercy, Sea-Fever | ||||
| André Maurois | author | The Silence of Colonel Bramble | ||||
| Carson McCullers | Novelist, playwright, poet | The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding | ||||
| Edgar Neville | playwright, film director | |||||
| J. Robert Oppenheimer | Physicist, professor | |||||
| Joe Orton | Playwright | The Ruffian on the Stair, Entertaining Mr Sloane | ||||
| Dorothy Parker | Writer | Enough Rope | ||||
| Violeta Parra | Composer, songwriter | Gracias a la Vida | ||||
| Arthur Ransome | Writer, journalist | Swallows and Amazons series | ||||
| Otis Redding | Singer, songwriter | Respect | ||||
| Elmer Rice | playwright | The Adding Machine, Street Scene | ||||
| Gerhard Ritter | Historian | Luther: Gestalt und Symbol | ||||
| José Martínez Ruiz | Novelist, essayist, literary critic | La ruta de Don Quijote, La voluntad, Antonio Azorín | ||||
| Carl Sandburg | Poet, writer, journalist | Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Chicago Poems | ||||
| Siegfried Sassoon | poet, soldier, writer | Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man | ||||
| Philippa Schuyler | Journalist, pianist | Adventures in Black and White | ||||
| Walter Terence Stace | Philosopher, academic, | Mysticism and Philosophy | ||||
| Billy Strayhorn | Composer, lyricist | Take the "A" Train, Lush Life | ||||
| Jean Toomer | Poet, novelist | Cane | ||||
| Pavlo Tychyna | poet, statesman, | |||||
| Paul Whiteman | Bandleader, composer | Flamin' Mamie | ||||
| Ossip Zadkine | Artist | The Destroyed City | ||||
| Wolfgang Zeller | Composer | |||||
| João Guimarães Rosa | Writer | Sagarana |
See also: Copyright law of Australia.
In 2004 copyright in Australia changed from a "plus 50" law to a "plus 70" law, in line with America and the European Union. But the change was not made retroactive (unlike the 1995 change in the European Union which bought some e.g. British authors back into copyright, especially those who died from 1925 to 1944). Hence the work of an author who died before 1955 is normally in the public domain in Australia; but the copyright of authors was extended to 70 years after death for those who died in 1955 or later, and no more Australian authors will come out of copyright until 1 January 2026 (those who died in 1955).
See also: Public domain in the United States.
The Copyright Term Extension Act means no published works would enter the public domain in this jurisdiction until 2019.[4] Only unpublished works whose authors died in 1947 enter the public domain.
On January 26, 2018, Ludlow Music, the music publisher for We Shall Overcome, agreed in a legal settlement that the song is in the public domain.[5]
On February 27, 2018, the video game One Hour One Life was released into the public domain.[6]