The short now won’t enter the public domain until 2023, or 95 years after it was first shown. One was that material in the public domain would be under-exploited — no one would republish a public domain work because there was limited prospect of profit. The second was that material in the public domain would be over-exploited — too many unauthorized versions would sap public domain works of their market value. The third was that public domain works would lose their value from misuse. That brings us to the issue of what’s been kept out of the public domain by the 1998 law.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 04, 2020 12:56 UTC