News 'The Great Gatsby' and other works from 1925 are now public domain

[Miles]

Every year, as we leave one behind and enter another, a new batch of literary works enter the public domain. That means the copyrights, which protect books from replication and adaptation for a certain number of years depending on when those books were published, expire, allowing creators to adapt or reimagine these works for free without dealing with the original authors' estates. "And all of the works are free for anyone to use, reuse, build upon for anyone — without paying a fee," Duke University law professor Jennifer Jenkins explained to NPR. Now that we're in 2021, copyrights for books published in 1925 are lifting, including ones on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

It's no coincidence that author Michael Farris Smith is publishing Nick, a Great Gatsby prequel novel about Nick Carraway, a few days from now. According to Time, new additions of the original novel are being printed with fresh introductions by author Min Jin Lee and culture critic Wesley Morris, and January will also bring an illustrated edition from Black Dog & Leventhal.

'The Great Gatsby' and other works from 1925 are now public domain

Creators are now able to freely put their spin on 'The Great Gatsby' in new ways without paying fees.

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