The combination of sections 24 and 35 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here; implementing EU Directives) means that copyright in a literary work expires from the first of January, 70 years after the death of the author (and it is the same for artistic works). For this reason, 1 January is Public Domain Day in the EU (and other life-plus-70-years jurisdictions), if not in the US (see: Communia | CSPD | Dag Blog | Everybody’s Libraries | ex Africa semper aliquid novi Africa | Excess Copyright | Fair Duty | Michael Geist | Mike Linksvayer | Public Domain Day | Public Domain Manifesto | Public Domain Review | Techdirt here and here | The Atlantic Wire | Wikipedia).
Since James Joyce died on 13 January 1941, it means that he is among the many famous authors whose published works fall into the public domain today (1709 Blog | BBC | Irish Times here and here | Linda Scales | RTÉ | TheJournal.ie | The Verge).
I visited the National Wax Museum today, and, among the many photographs I took were the image of Joyce above left (click on the image for a larger size), and this sentence (presumably a facsimile of Joyce’s handwriting, quoting from a letter he wrote to one of the early French translators of Ulysses):
The note says:
I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles, that it will keep the professors arguing for centuries over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.
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