A new year means a new batch of copyrights expire, and works like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Bell Jar become as free to use as Charles Dickens or Shakespeare. Unless you happen to live in the United States, that is.
As Duke University notes in its mournful annual report, no books will enter the public domain this year, or next year, or the year after that. This situation is the result of Congress's decision to add another 20 years of protection for long dead authors, which means that no new works will become public until 2019.
