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Why the Detroit Pistons' rookies are uniquely qualified to adjust to NBA life
Omari Sankofa II
On Wednesday, exactly a week after the NBA draft, the Detroit Pistons introduced their four rookies — Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart, Saddiq Bey and Saben Lee — alongside general manager Troy Weaver and head coach Dwane Casey via a Zoom conference, as has been the norm this year.
Here are three quick takeaways from the teleconference.
The Pistons have precious little time to acclimate to each other before the season tips off on Dec. 22. With only four players returning from last season, it means head coach Dwane Casey and his staff will have their work cut out for them to get everyone up to speed with less than a month to prepare.
That's especially true for Detroit's four rookies, who are coming into the season without a summer league and normal offseason to adapt to the NBA. But three of the rookies — Hayes, Bey and Lee — have parents who played high-level basketball. All three said that they'll be leaning on their parents to help guide them through the process.
Hayes grew up surrounded by professional basketball players thanks to his dad, DeRon, who was a standout at Penn State from 1989-93 before playing overseas in France. Killian was born in Lakeland, Florida, but moved to France as a baby when his dad began playing for LNB Pro A, the top men's professional basketball league in France.
[ Why Killian Hayes has a similar background to Kobe Bryant ]
"My dad, he's been here from the start," Hayes said. "I remember when I was younger, just going to his home games, all of his practices. So I got to learn at a young age what being a professional was. And having him there each and every step was really helpful. Definitely a blessing having a father that played professionally."
Lee's dad is former running back Amp Lee, who was drafted in the second round of the 1992 NFL draft and played in the league for nine seasons. It's a different sport, but the advice transcends their respective sports.
"Like Killian said, it's definitely a blessing to have a dad who played professionally," Lee said. "My dad's been able to give me a lot of words of wisdom, and just how to approach things professionally and the business side of things. Just keeping basketball the main thing and focusing on that."
Bey was introduced to sports through his mom, Drewanna, who played college basketball for Charlotte. He credits her for pushing him and helping him realize his dream of making the NBA.
"My mom, she played in college, so it's one of those things where she wouldn't let me go easy for any games," Bey said. "She was always on me since I was a little kid, so it was one of those things where either she told me to never be satisfied and always get better, no matter what. It's a blessing for her to have that influence on my life."
One of the many things about Hayes that appealed to Pistons fans was his French background. He shares a home country with the Pistons' 2019 first-round pick, Sekou Doumbouya, and the two players are also friends.
That Detroit (or Détroit, using the French spelling) was settled by French missionaries and means "strait" in French was the icing on top. Casey is aware of the French connection between Hayes, Doumbouya and the city. It also might've given the Pistons an advantage with Hayes, who wanted to be drafted by the Pistons.
"I learned something new to this recruiting process, our scouting process, about our French connection, Casey said. "I think that put us in a good light with Killian and his family."
The early bird ...
The Pistons took Hayes with the seventh overall pick with several players who some projected to be better prospects — Deni Avdija, Obi Toppin and Tyrese Haliburton — still available.
Weaver was hired by the Pistons in June, but he was a huge fan of Hayes long before then. He started watching Hayes play as a 16-year-old in the French league and got to watch him in person for the first time earlier this year before the pandemic hit.
"I was fortunate to do my work early," Weaver said. "Good scouts do their work early. So I was fortunate and blessed to see him this year. But been watching him play since he was 16. He wasn't new to me or to the draft board. Very, very excited about Killian coming here to Detroit."
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarisankofa.


"Our contemporary human rights system is heir to demands for human dignity throughout history and across cultures. It expresses the enduring elements of the world's great philosophies, religions and cultures."
Many principles of international human rights law have their roots in ancient societies and religions.
Confucian thought is based around the teachings of Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher. In Confucian belief, individuals in society are dependent on each other and are encouraged to show respect to all. There is a strong degree of family piety and individuals are obliged to contribute towards a harmonious society.
Mo Tzu followed from Confucian thought to propose that justice should be administered in society in a humane way so that the interests of all people are met.
A similar perspective can be found in Islam where people are obliged to provide for Allah, each other and to cultivate well being.
Similarly, Buddhist teachings promote the value of compassion as a means of ending suffering, with a focus on human rights in the next life as well as the present moment.
Codes associated with ancient rulers such as Menes, Hammurabi, Draco, Solon and Manu outline standards of conduct for their societies, which existed within limited territorial jurisdictions. Some of these codes have been interpreted as an acknowledgement of human rights.
In 1200-300 BCE, the scriptures of the ancient Israelites formed the basis of Christian and Muslim thinking. The Ten Commandments outline respect for life and for the property of others. The principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty and the tradition of granting asylum originate in Jewish law.
In 40-100 CE, Christian beliefs taught equality before God. Followers were urged to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and forgive their enemies.
The Greek and Roman empires gave free male citizens certain political rights.
It is therefore important to understand that human rights have originated in many different societies. Their development has occurred through moral and religious codes and through legal frameworks.


Are Cryptocurrencies Disrupting the Economy in 2018?
In a recent blog post, I talked about the need for many ways to represent business rules depending on your task at hand. That sparked some excellent comments that make a perfect introduction for this follow-up post on Rule Validation.
How do you know that this one extra rule will not blow up your decisioning???
Will it blow up my code and result in software exceptions?
Will it blow up my existing logic and result in decisions I don't want?
In this post, I will explore different series of activities that protect you from those unwanted blasts in your Production systems.
Quality Assurance is the lowest level of safety net that your IT police will not let you get around — and that is for your own good!
You may encounter issues that make your code "explode" to keep the analogy, or they may cause your code to "not detonate". The latter here refers to systems that hang for way too long. Runtime Performance delays can be as serious an impediment as a quick blow up.
The good news is that QA is a fairly mature discipline and most organizations have invested in at least partially if not totally automated tests for both categories. Your IT organization is likely to have a good handle on those — how to detect them at least.
The key question: Is it the logic you want?
Does it do what you want it to do? That semantic question can only be looked at by the experts that codified it. In real-life, we have seen business users or business analysts grab one test case and walk through the rule, one finger on the screen, one finger on the paper sample. You may have invested in more automated unit case testing… but the business owners may still want some oversight regardless so that nothing falls through the cracks.
Does it clash with some logic already there? This is where automated Verification complemented by expert oversight can help. The goal is to identify logic flaws like gaps and overlaps. Tools can help find those but there are many cases where the "anomalies" are intended. For example, you will likely not issue insurance policies for drivers under the age of 16… But what happens to the underwriting and rating logic? Will you bound the condition to the age bracket 16-25 or just refer to the "less than 25″ youngsters? Although equivalent if you red-flag the applications upstream in your logic, the latter may give you a false sense of comfort if and when the driving age limit is lowered to 14… Is the same logic applicable? Are they similar in risk / behavior? Will you find all the business rules that discriminate against (young) age to make the necessary modification then? Or should you create that segmentation now, instructing the system that super-youngsters (anyone less than 16 in our example) are not covered yet? Regardless of what is most applicable to your business, you probably want someone to look at those identified gaps and overlaps to confirm that they are intended… or not!
How does it affect past transactions? I may be stating the obvious here: if you add a rule, you clearly expect some transactions to be handled differently. Step 1 focuses on whether you are handling those correctly. I suggest here to look at ALL the transactions that are affected and making sure they are ALL meant to be. In other words, this is the hunt for false positives. Although it is obvious, I have seen many projects that do not focus on those until they get problems in Production.
Validation does not stop at the time you deploy your business rules though. You may have made assumptions while developing them, that may be worth monitoring, validating as well. If business conditions deteriorate, or dramatically improve (let's remain optimistic), your strategies may not be as optimized as they were when you deployed them. The projections based on your historical data would have to be reassessed. This is why validation should turn seamlessly into monitoring once it reaches Production.


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Tag Archives: Public Domain
Public Domain Day, 2021: Works from 1925 are in the Public Domain!
Every year, on January 1st, previously copywritten works enter the public domain and are free for all of us.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School does an amazing job of bringing awareness to the importance of the public domain Every year, they write a post highlighting the works entering the public domain. This post celebrates the works of 1925.
January 1, 2021 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1925 are open to all!
By Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain
On January 1, 2021, copyrighted works from 1925 will enter the US public domain,1 where they will be free for all to use and build upon. These works include books such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time, and Franz Kafka's The Trial (in the original German), silent films featuring Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, and music ranging from the jazz standard Sweet Georgia Brown to songs by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, W.C. Handy, and Fats Waller.
This is not just the famous last line from The Great Gatsby. It also encapsulates what the public domain is all about. A culture is a continuing conversation between present and past. On Public Domain Day, we all have a "green light," in keeping with the Gatsby theme, to use one more year of that rich cultural past, without permission or fee.
Works from 1925 were supposed to go into the public domain in 2001, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.2 Now the wait is over.
In 2021, there is a lot to celebrate. 1925 brought us some incredible culture. The Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. The New Yorker magazine was founded. The literature reflected both a booming economy, whose fruits were unevenly distributed, and the lingering upheaval and tragedy of World War I. The culture of the time reflected all of those contradictory tendencies. The BBC's Culture website suggested that 1925 might be "the greatest year for books ever," and with good reason. It is not simply the vast array of famous titles. The stylistic innovations produced by books such as Gatsby, or The Trial, or Mrs. Dalloway marked a change in both the tone and the substance of our literary culture, a broadening of the range of possibilities available to writers, while characters such as Jay Gatsby, Hemingway's Nick Adams, and Clarissa Dalloway still resonate today.
How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. HathiTrust will make tens of thousands of titles from 1925 available in its digital repository. Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can afford to publicly perform, or rearrange, the music. Educators and historians can share the full cultural record. Creators can legally build on the past—reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs.
Here are some of the works that will be entering the public domain in 2021. (To find more material from 1925, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time
Franz Kafka, The Trial (in German)
Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer
Alain Locke, The New Negro (collecting works from writers including W.E.B. du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond)
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Agatha Christie, The Secret of Chimneys
Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves
W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs
Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction
Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai
Harold Lloyd's The Freshman
The Merry Widow
Stella Dallas
Buster Keaton's Go West
His People
Lovers in Quarantine
The Unholy Three
(Yes, there was a film called Lovers in Quarantine, though it was a comedy, and they only had to quarantine for a week.)
Always, by Irving Berlin
Sweet Georgia Brown, by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard & Kenneth Casey
Works by Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, the "Mother of the Blues," including Army Camp Harmony Blues (with Hooks Tilford) and Shave 'Em Dry (with William Jackson)
Looking for a Boy, by George & Ira Gershwin (from the musical Tip-Toes)
Manhattan, by Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
Ukulele Lady, by Gus Kahn & Richard Whiting
Yes Sir, That's My Baby, by Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson
Works by 'Jelly Roll' Morton, including Shreveport Stomps and Milenberg Joys (with Paul Mares, Walter Melrose, & Leon Roppolo)
Works by W.C. Handy, including Friendless Blues (with Mercedes Gilbert), Bright Star of Hope (with Lillian A. Thorsten), and When the Black Man Has a Nation of His Own (with J.M. Miller)
Works by Duke Ellington, including Jig Walk and With You (both with Joseph "Jo" Trent)
Works by 'Fats' Waller, including Anybody Here Want To Try My Cabbage (with Andrea "Andy" Razaf), Ball and Chain Blues (with Andrea "Andy" Razaf), and Campmeetin' Stomp
Works by Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues," including Dixie Flyer Blues, Tired of Voting Blues, and Telephone Blues
Works by Lovie Austin, including Back Biting Woman's Blues, Southern Woman's Blues, and Tennessee Blues
Works by Sidney Bechet, including Waltz of Love (with Spencer Williams), Naggin' at Me (with Rousseau Simmons), and Dreams of To-morrow (with Rousseau Simmons)
Works by Fletcher Henderson, including Screaming the Blues (with Fay Barnes)
Works by Sippie Wallace, including Can Anybody Take Sweet Mama's Place (with Clarence Williams)
Works by Mrs. H.H.A. (Amy) Beach, including Lord of the Worlds Above, Op. 109 (words by Isaac Watts, 1674–1748), The Greenwood, Op. 110 (words by William Lisle Bowles, 1762–1850), The Singer, Op. 117 (words by Muna Lee, 1895–1965), and Song in the Hills, Op. 117, No. 3 (words by Muna Lee, 1895–1965)
Note that only the musical compositions referred to above are entering the public domain. Subsequent arrangements, orchestrations, or recordings of those compositions, such as the recording of Sweet Georgia Brown by The Beatles and Tony Sheridan, might still be copyrighted. You are free to copy, perform, record, or adapt the composition, but may need permission to use a specific recording of it.4
We have featured some influential Black artists on this list because they deserve particular recognition. While it is worth celebrating the entry of their works into the public domain, it is also necessary to realize that not all artists were able to benefit from the copyright system during the copyright term. It would be impossible to overstate the contribution of Black musicians to American music. Yet these artists were routinely excluded from the copyright system, either because of racist business-practices, legal formalities that disproportionately affected minority musicians, or unequal access to the tools of the law themselves. Many never received credit or compensation for their songs. The artists above were unusual in that they actually had works attributed to them, rather than being simply stolen—evidence of their remarkable ingenuity in the face of a colossally unfair system. But the fact that they received credit does not mean that they were fairly compensated for their work. Discrimination, segregation, lopsided contracts, and an exclusionary music business deprived many of these musicians—Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, and others—of the full payment their work so richly deserved.5
Why celebrate the public domain? Rediscovering the past, nurturing the future
A wellspring for future creativity. The goal of copyright is to promote creativity, and the public domain plays a central role in doing so. Copyright law gives authors important rights that encourage creativity and distribution. But it also ensures that those rights last for a "limited time," so that when they expire, works can go into the public domain, where future authors can legally build upon their inspirations. As explained by the Supreme Court:
"[Copyright] is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired." Sony v. Universal (1984).
In 2021, anyone can use these works as raw material for their own creations, without fear of a lawsuit. What kinds of things will people do with public domain works? In 2020, jazz composers and arrangers David Berger and Chuck Israels released The Public Domain Song Anthology. As described in the book's announcement, it collects 348 songs that can be "studied, performed, adapted, and shared without constraint." Better yet, "contributions by Berger and Israels have been gifted to the public domain as well, which will help to both preserve and give new life to the rich legacy of these songs—many of which are at risk of being forgotten or overlooked." For a preview of the songs entering the public domain in 1925, listen to the excellent Bob Schwartz quartet preform a medley of songs from 1925. Bravo! Other reuses inspired by the public domain include Techdirt's annual public domain game jam that invites designers to create games based on newly public domain works, and the Internet Archive's contest for the best short films using works set to enter the public domain.
The Great(er) Gatsby? After 95 years of exclusivity, The Great Gatsby is now entering the public domain, where it will be freely available to the next Fitzgerald…. What might future creators do with The Great Gatsby? They could make it into a film, or opera, or musical. Importantly, they could do so even if they did not have the financial resources that were required to license the book for the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by Baz Luhrmann. For future filmmakers The Great Gatsby will be as free as…. Romeo and Juliet. But the public domain does not just bring financial freedom, it also provides cultural leeway. Someone could reimagine the story with a more inclusive cast, or set in a different era. They could reinterpret it, tell it from the perspective of Myrtle or Jordan, or make prequels and sequels. In fact, novelist Michael Farris Smith is slated to release Nick, a Gatsby prequel telling the story of Nick Carraway's life before he moves to West Egg, on January 5, 2021. As explained in a New York Times editorial:
When a work enters the public domain it means the public can afford to use it freely, to give it new currency… [public domain works] are an essential part of every artist's sustenance, of every person's sustenance.6
Looking toward the book's entry into the public domain, Blake Hazard, Fitzgerald's great-granddaughter, was reflective: "We're just very grateful to have had it under copyright, not just for the rather obvious benefits, but to try and safeguard the text, to guide certain projects and try to avoid unfortunate ones. We're now looking to a new period and trying to view it with enthusiasm, knowing some exciting things may come." Just as Shakespeare's works have given us everything from 10 Things I Hate About You and Kiss Me Kate (from The Taming of the Shrew) to West Side Story (from Romeo and Juliet), who knows what The Great Gatsby might inspire? As with Shakespeare, the ability to freely reimagine the iconic works from 1925 may spur a range of creativity, from the serious to the whimsical, and in doing so allow the authors' legacies to endure.
Access to our cultural heritage
The public domain also enables access to cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history. 1925 was a long time ago. The vast majority of works from 1925 are out of circulation. When they enter the public domain in 2021, anyone can make them available online, where we can discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print—see here, here, and here.) The works listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more forgotten works are waiting to be rediscovered.
Unfortunately, the fact that works from 1925 are legally available does not mean they are actually available. After 95 years, many of these works are already lost or literally disintegrating (as with old films7 and recordings), evidence of what long copyright terms do to the conservation of cultural artifacts. For example, sequences that were shot in two-tone Technicolor from two of the films above, The Merry Widow and Pretty Ladies, are apparently lost. For the material that has survived, however, the long-awaited entry into the public domain is still something to celebrate.
The invisible public domain
Many of the works featured above are famous; that is why we included them. Their copyright holders benefitted from 20 more years of copyright because the works had enduring popularity, and were still earning royalties. But when Congress extended the copyright term for works like The Great Gatsby, it also did so for all of the works whose commercial viability had long ended. For the vast majority—probably 99%—of works from 1925, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason. (A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are "orphan works," where the copyright owner cannot be found at all.)
The story of Hitler's copyright
There were also some truly odious works from 1925, most notably Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, which was actually the subject of a fascinating copyright story. A young reporter named Alan Cranston, who later became a United States Senator, had read the German-language version of the book, and was surprised to see a bowdlerized translation of it circulating in the US. This English-language version had removed some of the most hateful and terrifying parts of the book, including Hitler's plan for Nazi domination. So, in Cranston's words, he prepared a "Reader's Digest-like version (showing) the worst of Hitler" that included "every important point, every important idea Hitler presented," but "eliminated his long-winded digressions, and cut out much of the endless repetition," and added annotations showing Hitler's "propaganda and distortions." Cranston pledged no royalties to Hitler, and promised that any profits would go to help refugees from Hitler's Reich. The unauthorized translation was 10 cents, and sold a half million copies in 10 days. It was 1939.
While Cranston had exposed Hitler's evil, his unauthorized translation had also undercut the market for the authorized and sanitized version. He was sued for copyright infringement, and lost in court. "No damages were assessed, but we had to stop selling the book," Cranston remembered. "But we did wake up a lot of Americans to the Nazi threat."
More Works!
Technically, many works from 1925 may already be in the public domain because the copyright owners did not comply with the "formalities" that used to be necessary for copyright protection.8 Back then, your work went into the public domain if you did not include a copyright notice—e.g. "Copyright 1925 Virginia Woolf"—when publishing it, or if you did not renew the copyright after 28 years. Current copyright law no longer has these requirements. But, even though those works might technically be in the public domain, as a practical matter the public often has to assume they're still copyrighted (or risk a lawsuit) because the relevant copyright information is difficult to find—older records can be fragmentary, confused, or lost. That's why Public Domain Day is so significant. On January 1, 2021, the public will know that works published in 1925 are free for use without tedious or inconclusive research.
In an abundance of caution, our lists above primarily include works where we were able to track down the renewal data suggesting that they are still in-copyright through the end of 2020, and affirmatively entering the public domain in 2021. However, there were many exciting works from 1925 for which we could not locate renewals. They will also be in the public domain in 2021, but may have entered the public domain decades ago due to lack of renewal.
Tom Lehrer performing at UCLA in 1960
Some authors choose to dedicate their works to the public domain before the end of the copyright term. In 2020, musician (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer, who became famous for his satirical songs in the 1950s and 1960s, put all of his lyrics and original compositions into the public domain. You can find them here. (Artists who wish to put their work in the public domain can do so using Creative Commons' CC0 tool.)
What Could Have Been
Works from 1925 are finally entering the public domain, after a 95-year copyright term. However, under the laws that were in effect until 1978, thousands of works from 1964 would be entering the public domain this year. They range from the films Goldfinger and Mary Poppins, to the children's classics The Giving Tree, Harriett the Spy, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, to The Rolling Stones' debut album and The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, and much more. Have a look at some of the others. In fact, since copyright used to come in renewable terms of 28 years, and 85% of authors did not renew, 85% of the works from 1992 might be entering the public domain! Imagine what the great libraries of the world—or just internet hobbyists—could do: digitizing those holdings, making them available for education and research, for pleasure and for creative reuse.
It's a Wonderful Public Domain. . . .
What happens when works enter the public domain? Sometimes, wonderful things. The 1947 film It's A Wonderful Life entered the public domain in 1975 because its copyright was not properly renewed after the first 28-year term. The film had been a flop on release, but thanks to its public domain status, it became a holiday classic. Why? Because TV networks were free to show it over and over again during the holidays, making the film immensely popular. But then copyright law reentered the picture. . . . In 1993, the film's original copyright holder, capitalizing on a recent Supreme Court case, reasserted copyright based on its ownership of the film's musical score and the short story on which the film was based (the film itself is still in the public domain). Ironically, a film that only became a success because of its public domain status was pulled back into copyright.
Want to learn more about the public domain? Here is the legal background on how we got our current copyright terms (including summaries of recent court cases), why the public domain matters, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions. You can also read James Boyle's book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press, 2008)—naturally, you can read the full text of The Public Domain online at no cost and you are free to copy and redistribute it for non-commercial purposes. You can also read "In Ambiguous Battle: The Promise (and Pathos) of Public Domain Day," an article by Center Director Jennifer Jenkins revealing the promise and the limits of various attempts to reverse the erosion of the public domain, and a short article in the Huffington Post celebrating a previous Public Domain Day.
1 In 2019, published works entered the US public domain for the first time since 1998. However, in the interim, a small subset of works—unpublished works that were not registered with the Copyright Office before 1978—had been entering the public domain after a life plus 70 copyright term. In 2021, unpublished works from authors who died in 1950 will go into the public domain. But, because these works were never published, potential users are much less likely to encounter them. In addition, it is difficult to determine whether works were "published" for copyright purposes. Therefore, this site focuses on the thousands of published works that are finally entering the public domain. Please note that unpublished works that were properly registered with the Copyright Office in 1925 are also entering the public domain after a 20 year wait—for those works, copyright was secured on the date of registration.
The copyright term for older works is different in other countries. In the EU, works from authors who died in 1950—including George Orwell, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and George Bernard Shaw—will go into the public domain in 2021 after a life plus 70 year term. In Canada, works of authors who died in 1970—including E.M. Forster, Rube Goldberg, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin—will enter the public domain after a life plus 50 year term.
2 The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act gave works published from 1923 through 1977 a 95-year term. They enter the public domain on January 1 after the conclusion of the 95th year, so as of 2021, works from 1925 and before are in the public domain. Works published through 1977 had to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the 95-year term—they all had to be published with a copyright notice, and works from before 1964 also had to have their copyrights renewed after the initial 28-year term. Foreign works from 1925 are still copyrighted in the US until 2021 if 1) they complied with US notice and renewal formalities, 2) they were published in the US within 30 days of publication abroad, or 3) if neither of these are true, they were still copyrighted in their home country as of 1/1/96.
3 Film buffs may notice that some well-known films from 1925—including The Lost World and Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush—are not on this list. This is because their copyrights were not renewed after the first 28-year term.
4 The list of public domain music refers to the "musical composition"—the underlying music and lyrics—not the sound recordings of those compositions. Federal copyright did not used to cover sound recordings from before 1972 (though pre-1972 sound recordings were protected under some states' laws). However, a new law from 2018 called the Music Modernization Act ("MMA") has federalized copyright for pre-1972 sound recordings, in order to clear up the confusing patchwork of state law protection. Recordings from 1925 will enter the public domain in 2026. Importantly however, unlike the rest of copyright law, the MMA allows for uses of orphan works: if those older recordings are not being commercially exploited, there is a process for lawfully engaging in noncommercial uses. For more information about this law, please see the Copyright Office's summary. While musical compositions are still copyrighted, there is a "compulsory license" that allows people to make recordings if they pay a standard royalty and comply with the license terms. However, this compulsory license doesn't cover printing sheet music, making public performances, synchronizing audio with video, or making "derivative works." And, of course, it requires payment. Public domain compositions can be freely recorded.
5 To learn more about the unequal treatment of Black artists, you can read the excellent scholarship of Professor Kevin J. Greene, including Copyright, Culture & (and) Black Music: A Legacy of Unequal Protection and "Copynorms," Black Cultural Production, and the Debate over African-American Reparations; Professor Olufunmilayo Arewa, including From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright and Cultural Context, Blues Lives: Promise and Perils of Musical Copyright and Writing Rights: Copyright's Visual Bias and African American Music; and Professor Lateef Mtima, including Intellectual Property, Entrepreneurship and Social Justice: From Swords to Ploughshares.
6 See Keeping Copyright in Balance, (February 21, 1998).
7 Many silent films were intentionally destroyed by the studios because they no longer had apparent value. Other older films have disintegrated while preservationists waited for them to enter the public domain, so that they could legally digitize them. (There is a narrow provision allowing some restorations, but it is extremely limited.) The Librarian of Congress estimates that more than 80% of films from the 1920s has already decayed beyond repair. Endangered film footage includes not only studio productions, but also works of historical value, such as newsreels, anthropological and regional films, rare footage documenting daily life for ethnic minorities, and advertising and corporate shorts. (For more information see here.)
8 Millions of books published from 1925–1963 are actually in the public domain because the copyright owners did not renew the rights. Efforts have been underway to unlock this "secret" public domain, but compiling a definitive list of those titles is a daunting task. The relevant registration and renewal information is in the 450,000-page Catalog of Copyright Entries ("CCE"). Currently there is no way to reliably search the entire CCE, but thankfully, the New York Public Library is in the midst of converting the CCE into a machine-searchable format. Even after this is complete, however, confirming that works without apparent renewals are in the public domain involves additional complexities. As of September 2019, the HathiTrust Copyright Review Program had completed this process with 506,989 US publications, and determined that 302,915 (59.7%) are in the public domain, and can therefore be made available online. The work of the New York Public Library, HathiTrust, and other groups continues, with the goal of opening these public domain books to the public.
Written by Jennifer Jenkins. Special thanks to our tireless and talented research maven and website guru Balfour Smith for building this site and compiling the list of works from 1925.
Public Domain Day 2021 by Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Posted in Copyright and Plagiarism	| Tagged 1925, Public Domain, Public Domain Day | Leave a comment
Public Domain Day 2019
Posted on January 1, 2019 by Glinda Harrison
For the last few years, I have written posts on January 1st talking about art, books, films and music that would have entered the public domain if those copyright terms had not been extended. Mainly due a corporation trying to protect the rights to a cartoon mouse, for an entire generation in the United States, no new material has fallen into the public domain. The fact that new material is FINALLY entering the public domain this year is a big deal and from here on out, every year, new works will fall into the public domain on a yearly basis.
The Public Domain belongs to the the people. The works contained within it are a part of our history and culture. When works fall into the public domain, many of these works suddenly reappear or are transformed into new art forms. So dig in; let's see what's in there, shall we? This is truly something to celebrate.
From Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
January 1, 2019 is (finally) Public Domain Day: Works from 1923 are open to all!
For the first time in over 20 years, on January 1, 2019, published works will enter the US public domain.1 Works from 1923 will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. They include dramatic films such as The Ten Commandments, and comedies featuring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. There are literary works by Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton, the "Charleston" song, and more. And remember, this has not happened for over 20 years. Why? Works from 1923 were set to go into the public domain in 1999, after a 75-year copyright term. But in 1998 Congress hit a two-decade pause button and extended their copyright term for 20 years, giving works published between 1923 and 1977 an expanded term of 95 years.2
But now the drought is over. How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. Community theaters are planning screenings of the films. Students will be free to adapt and publicly perform the music. Because these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available, where you can rediscover and enjoy them. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print—see here, here, and here.) In addition, the expiration of copyright means that you're free to use these materials, for education, for research, or for creative endeavors—whether it's translating the books, making your own versions of the films, or building new music based on old classics.
Here are some of the works that will be entering the public domain in 2019. A fuller (but still partial) listing of over a thousand works that we have researched can be found here.
Safety Last!, directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, featuring Harold Lloyd
The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille
The Pilgrim, directed by Charlie Chaplin
Our Hospitality, directed by Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone
The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze
Scaramouche, directed by Rex Ingram
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Golden Lion
Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis
e.e. cummings, Tulips and Chimneys
Robert Frost, New Hampshire
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay
D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo
Bertrand and Dora Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization
Carl Sandberg, Rootabaga Pigeons
Edith Wharton, A Son at the Front
P.G. Wodehouse, works including The Inimitable Jeeves and Leave it to Psmith
Viginia Woolf, Jacob's Room
Yes! We Have No Bananas, w.&m. Frank Silver & Irving Cohn
Charleston, w.&m. Cecil Mack & James P. Johnson
London Calling! (musical), by Noel Coward
Who's Sorry Now, w. Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby, m. Ted Snyder
Songs by "Jelly Roll" Morton including Grandpa's Spells, The Pearls, and Wolverine Blues (w. Benjamin F. Spikes & John C. Spikes; m. Ferd "Jelly Roll" Morton)
Works by Bela Bartok including the Violin Sonata No. 1 and the Violin Sonata No. 2
Tin Roof Blues, m. Leon Roppolo, Paul Mares, George Brunies, Mel Stitzel, & Benny Pollack
(There were also compositions from 1923 by other well-known artists including Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, WC Handy, Oscar Hammerstein, Gustav Holst, Al Jolson, Jerome Kern, and John Phillip Sousa; though their most famous works were from other years.)
Of course, 1923 was a long time ago. (Under the 56-year copyright term that existed until 1978, we could be seeing works from 1962 enter the public domain in 2019.) Unfortunately, the fact that works from 1923 are legally available does not mean they are actually available. Many of these works are lost entirely or literally disintegrating (as with old films and recordings), evidence of what long copyright terms do to the conservation of cultural artifacts. For the works that have survived, however, their long-awaited entry into the public domain is still something to celebrate.
Technically, many works from 1923 may already have entered the public domain decades ago because the copyright owners did not comply with the "formalities" that used to be necessary for copyright protection. Back then, your work went into the public domain if you did not include a copyright notice—e.g. "Copyright 1923 Charlie Chaplin"—when publishing it, or if you did not renew the copyright after 28 years. Current copyright law no longer has these requirements. But, even though those works might technically be in the public domain, as a practical matter the public often has to assume they're still copyrighted (or risk a lawsuit) because the relevant copyright information is difficult or impossible to find—older records can be fragmentary, confused, or lost. That's why January 1, 2019 is so significant. On that date, the public will know that works published in 1923 are free for public use without tedious or inconclusive research.
For example, in 2019, we will know that Robert Frost's famous poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is in the public domain because copyright over the collection containing the poem, New Hampshire, will lapse. (It's possible that the poem might have entered the public domain earlier because it was first published in a magazine and that earlier copyright was not renewed on time—see discussion thread here—but we can be confident that its copyright has expired in 2019.) Frost's estate has used copyright law to strictly control uses of his works. Eric Whitacre, who composed the incredible Virtual Choir works, discovered this the hard way when he wrote a piece in memory of a couple who had died within weeks of each other after being married over fifty years. The piece was commissioned by the couple's daughter, whose favorite poem was "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." Whitacre wrote a choral work based on the poem, and it was so well-received that other conductors began asking him for the work. He writes:
After a LONG legal battle (many letters, many representatives), the estate of Robert Frost and their publisher, Henry Holt Inc., sternly and formally forbid me from using the poem for publication or performance… I was crushed. The piece was dead, and would sit under my bed for the next 37 years because of some ridiculous ruling by heirs and lawyers.
(Eventually he asked the poet Charles Anthony Silvestri to write new words for the music that had been set to Frost's poem, you can see the Virtual Choir performance of that composition here and read his full story here; note that Frost's lawyers were mistaken about when the copyright ends, as indicated above, it lapses in 2019, if it hasn't already.) Beginning in 2019, the next Whitacre won't face this frustration, and anyone may use this powerful poem in their own creations.
Note that copyright law has a way of introducing complexities into any analysis. There are some familiar works that appear to be from 1923, but are not in fact entering the public domain in 2019 because of publication details. One is Felix Salten's Bambi, A Life in the Woods, the basis for Disney's famous movie. Salten first published it in Germany without a copyright notice in 1923, then republished it with a compliant copyright notice in 1926. When Disney (of all companies) claimed that Bambi was in the public domain, a court disagreed, holding that because the initial 1923 publication was in Germany, the failure to include a copyright notice did not put the book into the US public domain. The 1926 publication was valid, so the book's copyright expires after 95 years in 2022.3 (The court's full opinion is here.) Also, while the copyrights in several Jelly Roll Morton songs lapse in 2019, his famous "King Porter Stomp" was not copyrighted until 1924 (even though it was recorded in 1923), so it is not entering the public domain until 2020.
In an abundance of caution, our list above only includes works where we were actually able to track down the notice and renewal data suggesting that they are indeed still in-copyright until 2019. We've also compiled—to the best of our research capabilities—a fuller spreadsheet showing other renewed works from 1923. You can find it here. But we want to emphasize that this is only a partial collection; many more works are entering the public domain as well, but we could not find the legal minutia to confirm their copyright status.
It's a Wonderful Public Domain. . . . What happens when works enter the public domain? Sometimes, wonderful things. The 1947 film It's A Wonderful Life entered the public domain in 1975 because its copyright was not properly renewed after the first 28-year term. The film had been a flop on release, but thanks to its public domain status, it became a holiday classic. Why? Because TV networks were free to show it over and over again during the holidays, making the film immensely popular. But then copyright law reentered the picture. . . . In 1993, the film's original copyright holder, capitalizing on a recent Supreme Court case, reasserted copyright based on its ownership of the film's musical score and the short story on which the film was based (the film itself is still in the public domain). Ironically, a film that only became a success because of its public domain status was pulled back into copyright.
Works from 1923 are finally entering the public domain, after a 95-year copyright term. However, under the laws that were in effect until 1978, thousands of works from 1962 would be entering the public domain this year. They range from the books A Wrinkle in Time and The Guns of August, to the film Lawrence of Arabia and the song Blowin' in the Wind, and much more. Have a look at some of the others. In fact, since copyright used to come in renewable terms of 28 years, and 85% of authors did not renew, 85% of the works from 1990 might be entering the public domain! Imagine what the great libraries of the world—or just internet hobbyists—could do: digitizing those holdings, making them available for education and research, for pleasure and for creative reuse.
1 No published works have entered our public domain since 1998. However, a small subset of works—unpublished works that were not registered with the Copyright Office before 1978—have been entering the public domain after a life plus 70 copyright term. But, because these works were never published, potential users are much less likely to encounter them. In addition, it is difficult to determine whether works were "published" for copyright purposes. Therefore, this site focuses on the thousands of published works that are finally entering the public domain.
2 Works published between 1923 and 1977 had to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the 95-year term—they all had to be published with a copyright notice, and works from 1923–1963 also had to have their copyrights renewed after the initial 28-year term.
3 Foreign works from 1923 are still copyrighted in the US until 2019 if 1) they complied with US notice and renewal formalities, 2) they were published in the US within 30 days of publication abroad, or 3) if neither of these are true, they were still copyrighted in their home country as of 1/1/96. Note that the copyright term for older works is different in other countries: in the EU, works from authors who died in 1948 will go into the public domain in 2019 after a life plus 70 year term, and in Canada, works of authors who died in 1968 will enter the public domain after a life plus 50 year term.
Special thanks to our tireless and talented research maven and website guru Balfour Smith for building this site and compiling the list of works from 1923.
Ebook Evangelist's note: This article reprinted from Public Domain Day 2019 by Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. This article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Posted in Copyright and Plagiarism	| Tagged art, books, Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School, films, music, Public Domain | Leave a comment
Because of extensions to the term of copyright law, here in the United States, nothing new has entered the public domain for the last twenty years. Every year on January first, The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University writes a post on what would have entered the public domain on this day before copyright law was extended to its current terms. Here are some of the highlights from the post:
Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author's death, and corporate "works-for-hire" are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1961 would enter the public domain on January 1, 2018, where they would be "free as the air to common use." Under current copyright law, we'll have to wait until 2057.1 And no published works will enter our public domain until 2019. The laws in other countries are different—thousands of works are entering the public domain in Canada and the EU on January 1.
What books would be entering the public domain if we had the pre-1978 copyright laws? You might recognize some of the titles below.
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine
Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach
Consider the films from 1961 that would have become available this year. You could share clips with friends or incorporate them into fan fiction. Community theaters could show the full features. Libraries and archivists would be free to digitize and preserve them. Here are a few of the movies that we won't see in the public domain for another 39 years.
The Guns of Navarone
A Raisin in the Sun
The Parent Trap
Splendor in the Grass
Judgment at Nuremberg
What 1961 music could you have used without fear of a lawsuit? If you wanted to find guitar tabs or sheet music and freely use some of the influential music from 1961, January 1 2018 would have been a rocking day for you under earlier copyright laws. Patsy Cline's classic Crazy (Willie Nelson) would be available. So would Stand By Me (Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller), Runaway (Del Shannon, Max Crook), and Let's Twist Again (Kal Mann, Dave Appell). You could publicly perform or set short films to Surfin' (Brian Wilson, Mike Love) or Crying (Roy Orbison, Joe Melson), all without permission or fee. Today these musical works remain copyrighted until 2057.4
Like West Side Story, some of the hit songs from 1961 borrowed from earlier works. Elvis Presley's Surrender (Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman) was adapted from the 1902 Neapolitan ballad "Torna a Surriento" (Ernesto and Giambattista de Curtis), and his Can't Help Falling in Love (Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, George David Weiss) is derived from the 1784 French song "Plaisir d'amour" (Jean-Paul-Égide Martini).
The current copyright law also affects the status and availability of works of art and scientific research.
You can read the entire article here. Please also take a moment to read some of the articles on the Center's site which explain the importance of the public domain, how it is shrinking due to copyright laws and why that matters.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain
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What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2017?
Reposted from Duke University website for the Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1960
The books To Kill a Mockingbird and Rabbit, Run, the films The Magnificent Seven and The Time Machine, and more. . .
John Updike, Rabbit, Run
Joy Adamson, Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval: The Age of Roosevelt
Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins
John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique
The books above are but a fraction of what would be entering the public domain on January 1. Imagine them being freely available to students and teachers around the world. Readers interested in iconic stories of courage in the face of racial injustice, or middle class America in the late 1950s, or just great literature, would have something to celebrate. In the current political climate, Shirer's work, and also those of Hayek, Bell, and Schlesinger, might provide food for thought. And Dr. Seuss's beloved books would be legally available for free online for children (of all ages).
You would be free to use these books in your own stories, adapt them for theater, animate them, or make them into a film. You could translate them into other languages, or create accessible Braille or audio versions.2 You could read them online or buy cheaper print editions, because others were free to republish them. Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print—see here, here, and here. Take, for example, The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater—like the works listed above, it was published in 1960; but unlike those works, it's in the public domain because the copyright was not renewed. You can legally download it for free, and the purchase price for an eBook is $0.99, instead of $10 or $20.
Imagine a digital Library of Alexandria containing all of the world's books from 1960 and earlier, where, thanks to technology, you can search, link, annotate, copy and paste. (Google Books has brought us closer to this reality, but for copyrighted books where there is no separate agreement with the copyright holder, it only shows three short snippets, not the whole book.) Instead of seeing these literary works enter the public domain in 2017, we will have to wait until 2056.
The Frozen-in-Time Machine
Consider the films and television shows from 1960 that would have become available this year. Fans could share clips with friends or incorporate them into homages. Local theaters could show the full features. Libraries and archivists would be free to digitize and preserve them. Here are a few of the movies that we won't see in the public domain for another 39 years.
Ocean's 11
The Alamo
The Andy Griffith Show (first episodes)
The Flintstones (first episodes)
These works are famous, so thanks to projects like the National Film Registry, we're not likely to lose them entirely. The true tragedy is that of forgotten films that are literally disintegrating while preservationists wait for their copyright terms to expire.3
It's Now or . . . 2056?
What 1960 music could you have used without fear of a lawsuit? If you wanted to find guitar tabs or sheet music and freely use some of the great music from this year, January 1, 2017 would have been a rocking day for you under earlier copyright laws. Elvis Presley's hit song It's Now or Never (Wally Gold, Aaron Schroeder) would be available. So would Only the lonely (know the way I feel) (Roy Orbison, Joe Melson), Save the Last Dance for Me (Mort Shuman, Jerome Pomus), and Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (Paul J. Vance, Lee Pockriss). Your school would be free to stage public performances of the songs from the musical Camelot (Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe). Or you could set a video to Harry Belafonte's Grizzly Bear (Harry Belafonte, Robert DeCormier, Milt Okun) from Swing Dat Hammer. Today, these musical works remain copyrighted until 2056.4
Science from 1960—copyrighted research, still behind paywalls
1960 was another significant year for science. Max Perutz and Sir John Kendrew published articles on the structure of hemoglobin and the structure of myoglobin, respectively, and Robert Burns Woodward published an article describing a total synthesis of chlorophyll. (All three later won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry.) Theodore Maiman demonstrated the first working laser, a ruby laser. And the US launched its first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1.
If you follow the links above (and you do not have a subscription or institutional access), you will see that these 1960 articles are still behind paywalls. You can purchase the individual articles from the journal Nature for $32. A distressing number of scientific articles from 1960 require payment or a subscription or account, including those in major journals such as Science and JAMA. And the institutional access that many top scientists enjoy is not guaranteed—even institutions such as Harvard have considered canceling their subscriptions because they could no longer afford the escalating prices of major journal subscriptions.
It's remarkable to find scientific research from 1960 hidden behind publisher paywalls. Thankfully, some publishers have made older articles available in full online, so that you can read them, even though it may still be illegal to copy and distribute them. In addition, some older articles have been made available on third party websites, but this is not a stable solution for providing reliable access to science. Third party postings can be difficult to find or taken down, links can get broken, and would-be posters may be deterred by the risk of a lawsuit. Under the pre-1978 copyright term, all of this history would be free to scholars, students, and enthusiasts.
Not all scientific publishers work under this kind of copyright scheme. "Open Access" scientific publications, like those of the Public Library of Science, are under Creative Commons licenses, meaning that they can be copied freely from the day they are published.
Works from 1988!
Most of the works highlighted here are famous—that is why we included them. And if that fame meant that the work was still being exploited commercially 28 years after its publication, the rights holders would probably renew the copyright. But we know from empirical studies that 85% of authors did not renew their copyrights (for books, the number is even higher—93% did not renew), since most works exhaust their commercial value very quickly.
Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Up to 85% of all copyrighted works from 1988 might have been entering the public domain on January 1, 2017.
That means that all of these examples from 1960 are only the tip of the iceberg. If the pre-1978 laws were still in effect, we could have seen 85% of the works published in 1988 enter the public domain on January 1, 2017. Imagine what that would mean to our archives, our libraries, our schools and our culture. Such works could be digitized, preserved, and made available for education, for research, for future creators. Instead, they will remain under copyright for decades to come, perhaps even into the next century.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current copyright term is that in most cases, the cultural harm is not offset by any benefit to an author or rights holder. Unlike the famous works highlighted here, the vast majority of works from 1960 do not retain commercial value,5 but they are presumably off limits to users who do not want to risk a copyright lawsuit. This means that no one is benefiting from continued copyright, while the works remain both commercially unavailable and culturally off limits. The public loses the possibility of meaningful access for no good reason. You can read more about the current costs associated with orphan works—works that are still presumably under copyright, but with no identifiable or locatable copyright holder—here and here. Importantly, the US Copyright Office has been engaged in efforts to find solutions to the orphan works problem. However, unlike other countries, the US has not enacted any such solutions.
1 The copyright term for works published between 1950 and 1963 was extended to 95 years from the date of publication, so long as the works were published with a copyright notice and the term renewed (which is generally the case with famous works such as those we are highlighting).
Many works published in 1960 are already in the public domain because the copyright holder did not comply with notice, renewal, or other copyright formalities. However, tracking down this information can be difficult (you can read just one of many illustrative examples collected by the Copyright Office here). Therefore, users often have to presume these works are copyrighted or risk a lawsuit (only works published before 1923 are conclusively in the public domain). You can read more about copyright terms from this excellent chart and from the US Copyright Office's guide.
It is also difficult to determine whether foreign works are in the public domain in the U.S. Generally speaking, as a result of international agreements, foreign works published after 1923 are still under copyright in the US as long as one of the following is true: they were published in compliance with US formalities, they were still copyrighted in their home countries as of 1996, or they were then published in the US within 30 days of publication abroad. You can learn more about copyright terms for foreign works from the Copyright Office guide here.
2 If you think publishers have not objected to this, you would be wrong. US copyright law has an exception that allows books to be reproduced in accessible formats, but this exception only applies to "authorized entities"—nonprofits or governmental agencies with a primary mission related to providing such services.
3 The law allows libraries and archives (not preservationists generally) to digitize works during the last 20 years of their copyright term, but only in limited circumstances: the library or archive first has to determine through a "reasonable investigation" that the work is not being commercially exploited and that they cannot obtain another copy of it at a reasonable price.
4 Under federal law at the time, these "musical compositions"—the music and lyrics—were subject to copyright, but the particular "sound recordings" embodying the musical compositions were not; federal copyright did not cover sound recordings until 1972. (Pre-1972 sound recordings are protected under some states' laws.) So, for example, the musical composition "It's Now or Never" written by Wally Gold and Aaron Schroeder would be federally copyrighted, but not Elvis Presley's particular sound recording of that composition.
5 A Congressional Research Service study indicated that only 2% of works between 55 and 75 years old continue to retain commercial value. As explained above, many works from 1960 are technically in the public domain, but it is often difficult to conclusively determine public domain status, so users have to presume that they're still under copyright.
The Public Domain Day 2017 web pages by Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Posted in Copyright and Plagiarism	| Tagged Duke University, Public Domain, Public Domain Day | Leave a comment
Library Corner 1-13-2016
Here is this week's roundup of library news:
US Library News:
Missouri town of just 304 residents supports a public library (Missourian)
Indiana: Library program has children creating their own books (NWITimes)
Nevada: A Day in the Life of a Bookmobile Librarian (Medium)
New York Public Library Releases New Promo Video For Their Education Programs (Infodocket)
International Library News:
Canada: Toronto Public Library gives commuters a ticket to read (The Star)
Canada: The legislature library: books and documents plus a hamburger, tin of caviar and bag of dirt (Edmonton Journal)
Worldreader: Top Books Read In 2015 (Worldreader)
Canada: Halifax Public Libraries says it can manage with less city funding (CBC)
UK: New report looks at creating a Single Library Digital Presence to support Public Libraries in the future (SCL)
Policy and Privacy:
2015-2016 edition of Financial Assistance for Library and Information Studies Directory available (ALA)
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016? (Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain)
Article: "Time For a Single Global Copyright Framework For Libraries And Archives" (Infodocket)
Reference and Statistics:
NYPD releases Internet database that gives details about all major New York City crimes (New York Daily News)
NOAA Annual 2015 U.S. Climate Report (NOAA)
Paramount Now Streaming 175 Free Movies Online, Including Westerns, Thrillers & Crime Pictures (Open Cuture) 12-23
Shakespeare Documented, coming soon (Folger)
British Library to put very big royal atlas online (The Art Newspaper)
New York Public Library Makes 180,000 High-Res Images Available Online (NPR) 1-6
U Libraries receives $224,450 to digitize African American collections (Continuum)
Library Receives Grant to Digitize Early Twentieth-Century Folk Music – (Duke University Libraries)
National Library Posts 220 High Resolution Jerusalem Maps on Wikimedia (The Jewish Press)
Digital Archive Launched, Chronicles 100 Years of Aerospace Achievements (Aviation Week)
Descriptions of 10,000+ Brazilian Chapbooks at AFC now Online (LOC)
About once a week, I post links to digital-related library news articles and information about digital collections available online. I also post other links of interest about the digital life daily on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.
Posted in Library Corner	| Tagged Duke University, Global copyright, Missouri, NYPL, Public Domain, South Bend, Worldreader | Leave a comment
Happy Public Domain Day 2016
January 1st is the day that works with expiring copyrights would enter the public domain. In the United states, the number of works entering the public domain is zero. Because of extensions in US Copyright law, no works will enter the public domain here until 2019. 😦
Every year, the Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain website writes about the works that would have entered the public domain under the old copyright laws. This year, works from the year 1959 would have entered the public domain: Films like North by Northwest by Hitchcock, Books like Goldfinger by Ian Fleming, music like Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, early episodes TV series like Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone or Rawhide, classic science fiction like Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Walter Miller's exquisite Canticle for Leibowitz.
For me personally, Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz is a particular travesty because it is not yet available as an ebook, although you can get it in paper (from a publisher I've never heard of) or in audio. I suspect the book is an absolute rights nightmare. If you read the Wikipedia entry on the novel, it says that it was originally published as magazine articles, then as a hardcover, and has been published in both paper and hardcover over 40 times since then. The original book publisher itself has changed hands several times. Even the NPR radio play version has been been removed from the Internet Archive due to rights issues.
Anyway, as you ponder the fact that the Kindle version of Starship Troopers that's selling for $9.99 could actually be free in some alternate universe with different copyright laws, check out Duke's article on the work that would have entered the public domain this year. There's a special section for pre-1976 copyrights whose copyrights would have expired. The article addresses the orphan works issues as well.
Posted in Copyright and Plagiarism	| Tagged Canticle for Leibowitz, Duke University, Miller, Public Domain | Leave a comment
Library Corner: 2-8-2015
Posted on February 8, 2015 by Glinda Harrison
Where publishers ought to be behind libraries (Teleread)
Artist upset after Long Beach Public Library removes doll from art display that it considered 'controversial' (Press Telegram)
Fire in major Russian library destroys 1m historic documents (The Guradian)
From Paper Maps to the Web: A DIY Digital Maps Primer (New York Public Library)
New Apps: Smithsonian Brings Historic Specimens to Life in Free "Skin and Bones" Mobile App (Infodocket)
Books & bikes: Share program considered for libraries (CT Post)
Big-Box Store Has New Life as an Airy Public Library (NY Times)
The K-12 and economic cases for a national digital library endowment (Teleread)
University of North Texas Libraries Placing Digitized News Film (1950-1979) From NBC 5 / KXAS-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth) on Portal to Texas History (Infodocket)
DK Launches Online Encyclopedia for Kids (Publishers Weekly)
The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use (Open Culture)
HMS Beagle sketchbooks added to Cambridge Digital Library (University of Cambridge)
Whitney Museum massively expands online collection database (Art News)
University of North Carolina Library Launches DocSouth Data, Historic Texts Ready For Analysis (Infodocket)
State of Tennessee Begins Rolling Out Collection of Digitized Historic Maps Online (Infodocket)
Humanities Open Book: Unlocking Great Books (NEH)
Once a week, I post links to digital-related library news articles and information about new digital collections available online.
Posted in Library Corner	| Tagged art, National Library Endowment, Public Domain | Leave a comment
Daily Links: Public Domain Day
Happy Public Domain Day!
January 1st is the day when new titles whose copyrights have expired enter the public domain. Unless you live in the US, that is. Thanks to laws which have extended the length of the copyright term, no new previously published works are entering the public domain until 2019. I THINK THIS IS A TRAVESTY. To read about the titles by authors such as Issac Asimov, Ian Fleming, Rachael Carson, and Martin Luther King that could have been freely available, take a look at the Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain website. For Canada and countries in the EU with sensible laws, enjoy!
Apple offers EU customers 14-day money-back returns on e-purchases: "No questions asked" digital refunds for iTunes, iBooks, and apps (but not in US) (Ars Technica)
HarperCollins Wipes Israel Off the Map (Digital Reader)
The Interview earns a stunning $15M from online sales: Sony got close to the $20 million weekend it was aiming for (Ars Technica)
Today in the Amazon bonus Gold Box deal, there are Over 40 Books to Jump-Start New Year's Resolutions for $2.99 or less. These include books on fitness, diet, goal-setting, inspirational and more.
Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other links of interest on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.
Posted in Daily Links	| Tagged EU, Harper Collins, Israel, New Year's Resolutions, Public Domain | Leave a comment
An Online Historical Images Bonanza
Posted on September 4, 2014 by Glinda Harrison
There have been an amazing number of historical images released for public viewing online. Here are just a few of the ones I have discovered recently:
The New York Public Library has released over a hundred and fifty years worth of restaurant menus that date from 1851 to 2008.
Yale University has launched an archive of over 170,000 images documenting the Great Depression. There is a informative article on the photos with links at Open Culture.
At Monoskop, a site for the study of arts, media and the humanities, there is a collection of avant-garde and modernist magazines from 1890 to 1939 available online.
Want to see what the Google Books project would look like if it scanned images? At Flickr, there is an archive of over 2 million images, all in the public domain, The photos, from books, magazines and newspapers, span a 500 year period and were originally scanned as part of the Internet Archive project. Eventually, the archive will encompass over 14 million images.
Image from the Internet Archive: Image from page 327 of "Handbook of the trees of the northern states and Canada east of the Rocky mountains. Photo-descriptive" (1907)
Posted in Magazines, News, Our Digital Life	| Tagged avant-garde, historical images, magazines, menus, NYPL, photos, Public Domain | Leave a comment
Daily Links: Public Domain in the Digital Age
From BoingBoing, an interesting piece on the public domain in the digital age and the concept of copyfraud.
Open Culture has an article on the Speech Accent Archive – The English accents of people who speak 341 different languages.
Amazon has 31 apps for free today (Saturday) via the Amazon App Store.
And on Making Use Of, you will find game, productivity and musical apps are on sale or free for the iPad. Note that I found that some of the pricing did not apply when purchased through a device other than an iPad.
My E-book finds of the day are The Golem and the Jinni (P.S.) and The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us from my to-be-read list. They are each on sale today for only $1.99.
Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news.
Posted in Apps & Active Content, Copyright and Plagiarism, Daily Links, E-book Find of the Day, News, Tablets	| Tagged apps, IOS, Public Domain | Leave a comment
The Google Play Bookstore now sells audiobooks, no subscription needed! play.google.com/store/books/ca… 1 day ago

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


GetHuman-raguela's next move: call Pandora Radio.
GetHuman-raguela did not yet indicate what Pandora Radio should do to make this right.
We are waiting for GetHuman-raguela to fix the problem and share the solution with the rest of us customers.
See how GetHuman-raguela fixes it.


Paceman Laurie Ferguson took five wickets but Pakistan and New Zealand had to share the honours after rain spoiled the third and final ODI leaving the series locked in 1-1.
New Zealand, chasing Pakistan's total of 279 for 8 had scored 31 for 1 in 6.5 overs when rain halted play.
Earlier, Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman and Haris Sohail all contributed with the bat before Lockie Ferguson took a career best 5-45 for a total of 11 wickets in the series.
Pakistan 279 for 8 (Babar 92, Fakhar 65, Haris 60, Ferguson 5-45) v New Zealand 35 for 1 (Worker 18*, Nicholls 15*, Shaheen 1-18).


text:
GOP Bill Provides $20 Billion for Agriculture, But No Language for Ethanol Aid
No Boost in CCC Authority
7/29/2020 | 10:41 AM CDT
By Jerry Hagstrom , DTN Political Correspondent
Talks continue on Capitol Hill about the next round of pandemic aid to businesses, schools, local governments and individuals. There is some urgency as a federal boost in unemployment benefits runs out at the end of the week. (DTN file photo)
WASHINGTON (DTN) -- The Republican COVID-19 pandemic aid package announced Tuesday will provide $20.457 billion in "direct funding" to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that can be used for a variety of purposes, including aiding livestock producers who had to dispose of their animals. But the bill does not make any changes to how the Commodity Credit Corporation can spend money.
Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Hoeven, R-N.D., announced the direct funding under what the Senate Republicans are calling the HEALS Act. Hoeven also noted that USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation already has $14 billion to spend on COVID-19 relief.
"This HEALS Act assistance we secured for farmers and ranchers will help to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on farm country," said Hoeven.
"Between the new direct funding and the CCC commitment, USDA will provide $34 billion to producers. At the same time, we are working through the Agriculture Appropriations Committee to ensure there is enough additional CCC authority for the regular farm bill programs. I am hopeful that we can pass this much-needed relief for producers in a timely way."
The text of the bill funding would be available to support "agricultural producers, growers, and processors impacted by coronavirus, including producers, growers, and processors of specialty crops, non-specialty crops, dairy, livestock and poultry, including livestock and poultry depopulated due to insufficient processing access and growers who produce livestock or poultry under a contract for another entity."
What the bill does not include, as of yet, is any specific language providing aid to the ethanol industry. Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, wrote an op-ed in the Hill highlighting the impacts of pandemic and economic shutdown on the ethanol industry. Cooper noted the Trump administration has aided the petroleum industry by taking in excess oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that has boosted oil prices. EPA also continues finding ways to provide regulatory relief for the fossil-fuels industry.
"The ethanol industry isn't asking for a 'bailout.' It's simply asking for Congress and USDA to lend a hand to help pull us up off the mat after COVID-19 dealt the industry a crushing blow," Cooper wrote. "That helping hand has already been extended to many other agricultural sectors and producers, as well as the oil and gas industry. As the Senate completes work on its Phase 4 stimulus bill, it should ensure the ethanol industry is not again left behind."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Tuesday morning he has had talks with Vice President Mike Pence on aid to the ethanol industry. Grassley also talked with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. Grassley added that fellow Iowa Senator Joni Ernst was trying to reach out to President Donald Trump, as well.
"I've made very clear from my position from talking to these people that we are talking about equity," Grassley said. He said the petroleum reserve aid to the oil industry amounts to about $3 billion. "So we're asking for $3 billion for ethanol, and I haven't gotten a 'no' from anybody, and that's kind of where we are."
Still, Grassley said right now it looks like the ethanol industry would have to depend on Perdue to carve out aid for ethanol.
For agriculture, the bill also includes:
-- $76.4 million for additional salaries and expenses at the Farm Service Agency "to prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including necessary expenses to hire temporary staff and overtime expenses."
-- $20 million for rural development program salaries and expenses "to prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, including administrative expenses."
-- $113.4 million for the USDA rental assistance program for temporary adjustment of wage income losses for residents of housing financed or assisted under the Housing Act of 1949.
-- $250,000 for nutrition programs administration overtime expenses.
-- $2 million for the Foreign Agricultural Service for additional salaries and expenses including relocation of employees and their dependents from overseas posts.
-- $245 million for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to make up for the loss of quarantine and inspection fees resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
The GOP bill comes in at about $1 trillion, but would reduce the federal unemployment benefit from $600 a week down to $200. The package does include another round of $1,200 payments to taxpayers.
The Washington Post reported talks began late Monday with congressional Democratic leaders as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. House Democrats had approved a $3 trillion bill in May that would largely maintain the $600 a week for unemployment, but also included $1 trillion in aid for states and local governments.
The Senate bill also provides another $100 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, a loan program run through the Small Business Administration that has given out about 5 million loans totaling more than $517.4 billion. Just under 140,000 loans have gone to agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting businesses, including farms. Those sectors have taken up just under $7.9 billion in loans.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also has put together liability protection for businesses from being sued over the coronavirus.
Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jhagstrom@nationaljournal.com
Follow him on Twitter @hagstromreport
(c) Copyright 2020 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.
Jerry Hagstrom


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Self-service environmental monitoring data with real-time open data
The Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation (DSITI) wanted to improve the publishing of environmental monitoring data. Their goal was to increase efficiency of sensor data capture and publishing by enabling 'self-serve' access for internal and external users in a controlled and secure way.
DSITI wanted to automate the publishing process and open environmental data through a single data Application Programming Interface (API) that would allow developers to create applications with real-time data, which will benefit the community. Better use of data standards (e.g. spatial formats) would allow users to use the data natively in their business software and applications.
The department worked with Axalon to tackle this 'self-service environmental monitoring' challenge Axalon captured data directly from DSITI's environmental monitoring sensors which increased the frequency of reading from hourly to 5 minute intervals (near real-time). This data was aggregated and exposed via a standards-based API. Axalon have built sample web, mobile and voice interfaces to demonstrate the value of real-time open data exposed via an API.
The datasets used for this project were DSITI's environmental and natural resources data, which are freely available to the public via the Queensland Government Open Data Portal.
The environmental monitoring datasets from the Science Division is one of the most downloaded datasets from the portal. These datasets are available for both historical and near real-time sites throughout Queensland. The real-time data used in this initiative was:
Storm tide
The user
Wave data is used by individuals, tourism and recreational businesses for planning of fishing or boating activities.
Mining companies use air quality data in addition to their own data to ensure they are staying within agreed limits.
Storm tide data is used by the Bureau of Meteorology as the basis of tide predictions, forecasting and modelling of extreme events.
During natural disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes or bushfires, multiple departments will access water quality, waves, storm tide and air quality data to inform their response.
Application developers, researchers and other government departments can access any of the data in real-time without needing access to source systems or data models.
The automated solution improves the efficiency and timeliness in which open data is published and also provides an improved, simplified and consistent way for end-users to interact with all types of environmental monitoring data.
Data captured is automatically compliant with standards such as HyperCat and SensorThings to ensure Queensland Government data is open and interoperable in real time.
This standards-driven approach can be leveraged by local, state and federal governments to improve the usability of open data, cross-agency collaboration, data interoperability and service integration—helping to improve government services.
View the presentation from the 19 minute mark
Other real-time data
Discover more real-time data on the Open data portal


He regularly attends continuing education programs and has received certificates in Orthodontics and Implant Dentistry. Within the community, Dr. Gentile is actively involved with local and national charities. Dr. Gentile has served as the President of the Avon Chapter of Unico National. He is a member of the Avon Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves on the Avon Alternative Energy Committee. He has 3 children and resides in Avon, Connecticut with his wife, Irene. Dr. Gentile enjoys playing golf and is an avid fly fisherman.
All cleanings and procedures are performed in the comfortable and relaxed setting we've created within our stress-free office. Don't wait any longer to come experience the gentle and proven work of our knowledgeable clinicians.
Dr. Gentile is ready to address your needs with individualized care.
We're committed to continual education and learning so that we're able to consistently provide you with the most up-to-date techniques and understanding of oral health. Make a same day appointment and come see the difference for yourself. Visit us in Avon, CT, or call today to find out more about you can benefit from our services.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


L'association locale ODRINO lance un appel d'offres local pour la sélection d'un cabinet d'expertise comptable qui aura en charge l'audit des procédures administratives et financières du bureau en Haïti (Port-de-Paix).
le jeudi 11 octobre 2018 à 14 heures.
Une société sera choisie par une analyse qualitative et financière des offres.
On October 4th 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti and damaged the spring fed water system at Source D'Esperance (Source of Hope).
The Source D'Esperance spring is underneath the big white scar in the mountain.
Members from the Lacoma church found the ends of the broken pipes and repaired the waterline restoring water to their community.
But only two weeks later, flooding from the storm widened a nearby river to where the pipes were buried. It washed out the repairs and did extensive damage to the water system.
Church members seen here are trying to find the end of the pipe near the spring to reconnect it.
the previous repair efforts were the first place to look.
What they found was that the river had ripped away fifty pieces of pipe (over 1000′) from the pipeline and that repairs were impossible.
The river had widened to the area where the pipe was buried washed away the pipe and several feet of soil that the pipe was buried in. The pipeline would have to be rerouted.
Another and equally large problem was the damage to the spring cap. The water was now coming out from underneath what was left of the concrete cap. It would need to be removed and rebuilt so as to withstand water fifteen feet deep coming over it as well as withstanding four foot diameter boulders smashing into it as they rolled down the river during flooding. These boulders have to be broken up and removed by hand to so the pipeline can go through here.
below the surface shown this picture and encased in concrete.
The rock in the center of the picture is held in place by the little round rock underneath. To keep this rock from rolling out and further blocking the path of the pipeline we had to make a masonry base around this rock to keep if from rolling. Earth tremors are common in this area and we will have men working close by with jackhammers causing a lot of vibration.
Volunteers from church and community dug through the boulder field to replace the pipeline that had been washed away. They dug the trench as much as they could uncovering the boulders so the rock breaking crew could come behind and break the boulders up and remove them. In some cases they can make the pipe pass in the space under the rocks and leave rocks in place.
Further downstream of the spring, for the pipe rerouting to work, the pipe has to be dug twelve feet deep through another boulder field and then surrounded by reinforced concrete. That trench was also completely dug by volunteer labor organized by the churches in the area. However the rock removal and concrete work is being done by an experienced crew from ODRINO.
Rocks are broken using an electric jackhammer, drilled holes and wedges and slips and 12 pound sledge hammers until the pieces are small enough to be removed by hand. The wedges are used in granite quarrys but the rock here is just a bit softer than granite meaning we had to drill more holes and use a bigger hammer and abuse the wedges and slips some to break the rock.
The rock is kaolinite and it is ground up and sometimes used in toothpaste. It's also known to be good for soothing an upset stomach and the treatment of diarrhea; the most common of these was kaopectate, which later abandoned the use of kaolin. The geologist who identified the specimen we sent identified this rock by licking it.
At this writing, we are moving well on the pipe laying and rock removal; much faster than thought possible thanks to overwhelming community participation. All the pipe ODRINO had available has been used and we are waiting for a boat from Florida with the next shipment of pipe. After many delays it has gotten approval to sail. We are also waiting for the roofing tin for roofs damaged in the hurricane winds.
After being slowed down by torrential rains in May, the river crossing was completed in June.
The concrete encased pipes are built as a concrete beam when crossing the river and is supported by concrete pillars set in the river that serve as caissons.
A water system can cost hundred of thousands of dollars and needs to be built to survive hurricanes and earthquakes. Locally produced gravel and concrete are used with proven construction techniques for these conditions.


Facilitated by Yenn Purkis, the group offers support to women on the autism spectrum and mothers of daughters on the autism spectrum.
The discussion group usually meets on the first Thursday of the month from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm.
Please note the change of date for April, the group will run on Thursday 11 April.
The group meets in the Orpheus Room at the Hellenic Club in Woden (located at Matilda Street in Phillip).
Yenn Purkis is an author, public servant and passionate advocate for Autistic people and their families. Yenn frequently gives talks about living well with Autism and mental illness, including a presentation on Autism and resilience at the TEDx Canberra conference in 2013. Yenn has a radio show where invited guests talk about all things Autism, Positively Autistic and has written many books.


text:
Triton crisis as state funds axed
$4 million shortfall signals college's deepening
by Bill Dwyer February 16, 2010 February 8, 2021
Fallout from the state budget crisis is hitting home hard at Triton College.
Triton, which started the 2010 fiscal year with a budget already $6,231,866 short on the operating side, is struggling to absorb a $4 million shortfall in state operational funding.
That threatens Triton's Adult Education programs, likely to soon be cut entirely, and, in a worst-case scenario, could mean the River Grove college itself would be forced to close at the end of the 2011 school year.
Triton College serves North Riverside, Riverside and part of Brookfield.
The college's chief financial officer, Sean Sullivan, confirmed that the state will not be forwarding the third and fourth of four annual operating grants to the school. He said the state has told Triton that at least two, and possibly all four, of next year's operations grants will also be canceled. That translates into an estimated $3.7 to $4.2 million shortfall this fiscal year, with a total projected shortfall through the next fiscal year of at least $8.4 million, and possibly more.
"I've not heard from any state legislator who's been overly optimistic," Sullivan said.
Over the past week, the college's union presidents were notified to prepare for severe fiscal belt tightening. On Friday, an e-mail went out to all staff about steps the college was taking to respond.
Among the steps being taken is a hiring freeze and suspension of spending on all items not deemed essential.
"We're planning for the worst and hoping for the best," Sullivan said.
State Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) acknowledged the state's three- to six-month lag in paying bills was "creating a huge burden for our vendors," including Triton. He said Thursday that the budget crisis stems from "a systemic problem" resulting in part from "a real evaporation in state revenue."
"Tax revenues are way down," said Harmon, who added that he doesn't have much that's positive to offer at the moment. "We've been hunkering down at the state. We've been trying to make do, and that has consequences."
Among those consequences are all but certain programming and personnel cuts at Triton and other two- and four-year schools.
Documents obtained by the Landmark's sister paper, Wednesday Journal, indicate that Triton has the reserves to survive the current budget shortfall, but will have to end its Adult Education programming "immediately." In order to keep those programs going through June, an unsigned memo from President Patti Granados states the college will require more than $900,000.
"The college will need to re-evaluate its current mission for FY 2011," the memo states. "The result of the expected deficit next year will be program cuts and personnel cuts to make up for the shortfall."
Like the state, Sullivan said, Triton doesn't seem to have many options. Anticipated reserves are expected to fall from slightly more than $9 million to about $3.4 million. "Our tax dollars are maxed," Sullivan said. "Our tuition is maxed."
Sullivan said the situation could get far worse.
"This is just the operating grant," he said, referring to what's not coming.
Other state grants are linked to federal grants, which require state matching dollars. Without those matching dollars, the federal money will not be released.
"That's when it starts rippling out," Sullivan said.
Harmon said he expects to be present at a Feb. 20 legislative breakfast hosted by the West Cook Municipal Conference.
On Jan. 6, officials from eight schools in southern Illinois met with Illinois Community College Board officials and state legislators at another legislative breakfast at John A. Logan College in Carterville to discuss their concerns.
At that breakfast, ICCB Chairman Guy Alongi said the state owes $850 million in payments to universities and community colleges. The result, he acknowledged, was colleges having trouble making payrolls and being forced to "consider closing enrollments, cutting classes and furloughing workers."
One recommendation that came out of the Logan College meeting, which could resonate with Triton and other area colleges, is a proposed legislative change in the multiplier (from 75 percent to 150 percent) that would increase the amount of working cash fund bonds community colleges can legally issue.


Infinitely flowing circles make up these superb earrings from the Classic Chain collection by John Hardy. Crafted in sterling silver, a small circle post drops two more circles in linear fashion, and a fourth circle is fitted within the larger bottom circle to create this design. All shapes are beautifully hand carved with the classic chain motif. You'll love the sultry flair of these John Hardy earrings.