Class of 2019 – The Public Domain Review

"Top Row (left to right): Mervyn Peake; Martin Luther King Jr.; Marcel Duchamp. Middle Row (left to right): Kurt Schwitters; John Steinbeck; Helen Keller; Maria Olga de Moraes Sarmento da Silveira. Bottom Row (left to right): Ruth Benedict; Sergei Eisenstein; Antonin Artaud; D. W. Griffith.

Pictured above is our top pick of artists and writers whose works will, on 1st January 2019, enter the public domain in many countries around the world. Of the eleven featured, six will be entering the public domain in countries with a “life plus 70 years” copyright term (e.g. most European Union members, Brazil, Israel, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey, etc.) and five in countries with a “life plus 50 years” copyright term (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, and many countries in Asia and Africa) — those that died in the year 1948 and 1968 respectively. As always it’s a motley crew assembled for our graduation photo, including a major figure of the European avant-garde, two of the most important figures in the history of film, the urinal-loving father of conceptual art, and three key figures in social justice movements...."