Gatsby, 1984, The trial… These books which enter the public domain

In 2021, some books, including several masterpieces, will be available to the public.

As every year, many works will indeed enter the public domain.

Among them:

by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, or

by Georges Orwell.

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A bad deal for the rights holders

For those with rights, this is bad news.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald's

for example, continues to sell at the rate of 400,000 copies per year.

The work belongs to everyone now, so there is no more copyright to pay for the original version.

But this entry into the public domain also implies that anyone can take hold of the work to make any adaptation.

We can thus imagine works like The son of Gatsby, Gatsby and the 40 thieves, or even Gatsby against Mrs Dalloway.

Virginia Woolf's novel,

, is also copyright free, like all those published in 1925. 

A change that doesn't just concern novels

This entry into the public domain only applies to original works, not recent translations into French for example.

In this category, the translation of

by Jack London by Raymonde de Galard will also enter the public domain in 2021.

goes for

of Franz Kafka or

by Joseph Conrad.

But also the famous

of George Orwell.

However, this change does not only concern novels.

The texts of Leon Blum will be free of rights in 2021. And the

too, the sociologist Marcel Mauss, is offered to the public.