question: why some much older works (like Don Quixote or The Three Musketeers) are just now being released from copyright when they were written before 1923
comment: The three musketeers has been in public domain. For decades. That's how everyone has made so many movies about them. Peter pan for instance. He is not Disney's character. They just made him more famous. Although, Disney has SOMEHOW managed to successfully argue their position on some properties and have them somehow removed from public domain. Or have simply tied lesser companies in litigation so long they folded under the cost.
passages: List of modernized adaptations of old works
  
  Sometimes, an author will write a story that is consciously based on an older story (typically in the public domain) but with a modernized setting and characters. Sometimes the original work is still copyrighted, but the writer includes the minimum quota of differences to avoid being a direct plagiarism while using an immediately recognizable story template.
  
  Section::::Film.
  
  BULLET::::- "10 Things I Hate About You" – William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" set in a Seattle suburbia in the modern day
   BULLET::::- Composer Rudolf Friml had a stipulation in his contract that forbade the use of newly composed songs in this production. Paramount attempted to change the film's title to "If I Were King" and also had some new songs composed for the film. When Friml was made aware of the new songs, he sued the studio. As a result, Paramount changed the title back to "The Vagabond King" and paid Friml $50,000 to allow for the use of non-original songs.
  
  Section::::Preservation.
   1923 in literature
  
  This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1923. 
  
  For works published in the United States, this year is also significant because from January 1, 2019, these were the first in 20 years to enter the public domain. They were originally to do so in 1999, but the U.S. Congress extended the length of copyright by twenty years. 
  
  Section::::Events.
   BULLET::::- April 20 – Hungarian Ferenc Molnár's play "Liliom" is first produced on Broadway in English.
  
  BULLET::::- May 9 – The première of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" ("Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore") at the Teatro Valle in Rome divides the audience.
  
  BULLET::::- May – A production of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" directed by Robert Atkins at The Old Vic, London, restores the unexpurgated text for the first time since the Shakespearean era.
   Mashup novels constitute derivative works since they include major elements borrowed from an original, previously created work. Most authors of such novels, however, avoid potential legal issues (and the payment of royalties to the original writers) by basing their books on texts that are in the public domain. One notable exception is "The Late Gatsby", which combines F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" with a vampire narrative – since the original text is still protected by the Copyright Term Extension Act (until 2020) in the United States, the book was published outside the U.S. and remains unavailable to its residents.
   In 1995 the period of copyright was extended to the life of the author plus 70 years (as described above) for works which were, at that time, still within copyright anywhere within the European Economic Area. One effect of this was to impose a copyright extension of twenty years on all works that were made or published after 1911 by any person who had died after 1945, as the previous copyright period (of lifetime plus 50 years) had not yet expired in the UK for someone who had died in 1945 or later.
   BULLET::::- "Gulliver's Travels (2010 film)" - the classic fable by Jonathan Swift. Instead of an 18th-century English doctor, Gulliver is now a 21st-century New York postal clerk who loves pop cultural fantasy and make believe; after getting lost among the Lilliputians he creates for them a religion based on himself by acting out the Star Wars movie saga which he tells them is the story of his own life.
  
  BULLET::::- "The Guns of Navarone" – "The Seven Samurai" set in the Dodecanese during World War II.
  
  BULLET::::- "Hamlet (1996 film)" - Shakespeare's "Hamlet" set in Victorian times
   BULLET::::- September – T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" (1922) is first published in the United Kingdom in book form, complete with notes, in a limited edition by the Hogarth Press of Richmond upon Thames. The firm is run by Eliot's Bloomsbury Group friends Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and the type handset by Virginia (completed in July).
  
  BULLET::::- October 8 – A performance of "Titus Andronicus" opening at The Old Vic directed by Robert Atkins is the first in London since 1857. It is the first to restore the full original text since Shakespeare's time.
   Under the 1995 Regulations (set out below), the period of author's copyright was further extended, to the lifetime of the author and 70 years thereafter. Those regulations were retrospective: they extended the copyright period for all works which were then still in copyright, and (controversially) revived the lapsed copyright of all authors who had died in the previous 70 years, i.e. since 1925.
   BULLET::::- 1985 : "Der Kleine Prinz" opera with music by Michael Horwath and libretto by Barbara Hass, at the
  
  BULLET::::- 2002: "" as a musical comedy by Richard Cocciante.
   In the United States, works published before 1924 are all in the public domain under the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1909 and previous law. This act provided for an initial term of 28 years. This term could be extended for an additional 28 years by registering copyright renewal with the United States Copyright Office.
   Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter. For works created before 1978, the copyright duration rules are complicated. However, works created before 1924 (other than sound recordings) have made their way into the public domain.
  
  Section::::Duration of copyright.:Works created before 1978.
   Once works enter into the public domain, derivative works such as adaptations in book and film may increase noticeably, as happened with Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel "The Secret Garden", which became public domain in the U.S. in 1987 and most of the rest of the world in 1995. By 1999, the plays of Shakespeare, all public domain, had been used in more than 420 feature-length films. In addition to straightforward adaptation, they have been used as the launching point for transformative retellings such as Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and Troma Entertainment's "Romeo and Juliet". Marcel Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q." is a derivative of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", one of thousands of derivative works based on the public domain painting.
   BULLET::::- "The Prince and the Pauper" (1915 film), directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin Stanton Porter; the first animated feature-length adaptation starring the voice of Marguerite Clark as Edward VI and Tom Canty.
  
  BULLET::::- "The Prince and the Pauper" (1920 film) (German: "Prinz und Bettelknabe"), a 1920 Austrian film directed by Alexander Korda and starring Tibor Lubinszky as Edward VI and Tom Canty
  
  BULLET::::- "The Prince and the Pauper" (1937 film), featuring Errol Flynn as Miles Hendon and Billy and Bobby Mauch as the title characters.
   All of Dunsany's work is in copyright in parts of the world , including the UK and European Union, with the early work (published before 1 January 1923) being in the public domain in the United States, and all of his work out of copyright in parts of the world with copyright durations of life + 60 or less. 
   At the time works only received protection under federal statutory copyright if the statutory formalities, such as a proper copyright notice, were satisfied. If this was not the case the work immediately entered into the public domain. In 1834 the Supreme Court ruled in "Wheaton v. Peters" (a case similar to the 1774 case of "Donaldson v Beckett" in Britain) that although the author of an unpublished work had a common law right to control the first publication of that work, the author did not have a common law right to control reproduction following the first publication of the work.
   Before February 2007, the periods of World War I and World War II were not taken into account for the determination of the expiry date of proprietary rights, with peculiar ways of counting these (Arts. L123-8 & L123-9 - see the French Wikipedia article ). These exceptions applied to works published before and during the wars, and must be added whatever the date of the author's death. These extensions were removed (for non-musical works) by the Court of Cassation in February 2007. They still have to be added to the 70 years delay for musical works, because of a 1985 law.
   In 1959, MGM's "Ben-Hur" received rave reviews and Everson felt they were not deserved — so he showed the 1925 version at the Huff. Rival collector Raymond Rohauer, experiencing a little trouble himself over a lawsuit from MGM, told the FBI what Everson was doing, and they confronted him after the performance. They seized the print, and Everson spent the next few days squirreling other hot titles around New York. Lillian Gish had to intervene on his behalf.
   In Australia, according to s33 of the "Copyright Act 1968", any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work that was published after the death of the author will continue to subsist under copyright 70 years after the year of first publication. e.g. If a work is published 10 years after the authors death, copyright would subsist for 70 years after first publication, i.e. 80 years after author's death. It should also be noted indefinite copyright does not apply to artistic works.
   Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books, films, and other works published in the United States in 1923 entered the public domain in 2019. Additionally, unpublished works whose authors died in 1948 entered the public domain. Foreign works from 1923 that were never published in the United States may be in the public domain as well. This was the first time since January 1, 1998, that a new group of works entered the public domain in the United States. From now on, works governed by the Copyright Act of 1909 will enter the public domain at the end of the 95th calendar year from publication. For example, 1924 works will enter the public domain on January 1, 2020, 1925 works in 2021, and so forth. 
   BULLET::::- "Much Ado About A Webseries" - based on "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare
  
  BULLET::::- "The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy" - based on "Peter Pan" by J. M. Barrie
  
  BULLET::::- "Nick Carraway Chronicles" - based on "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  
  BULLET::::- "Northbound" - based on "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen
  
  BULLET::::- "Notes by Christine" - based on "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux
  
  BULLET::::- "Nothing Much to Do" - based on "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare
   BULLET::::- "Andy and the Lion" by James Daugherty - children's book, relocating "Androcles and the Lion" to a 1930s American small town
  
  BULLET::::- "Anno Dracula" by Kim Newman - Bram Stoker's Dracula
  
  BULLET::::- "Beauty and the Beast" - 17th-century tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve is a retelling of the Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche
  
  BULLET::::- "Brazil (novel)" by John Updike - "Tristan and Isolde" set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro
  
  BULLET::::- "Born with the Dead" by Robert Silverberg – the myth of Orpheus relocated to near-future Zanzibar
   Section::::Origins.
  
  In the United States, the need to secure film rights of previously published or produced source materials still under copyright stems from case law. In 1907, the Kalem Company produced a one-reel silent film version of General Lew Wallace's novel "" without first securing film rights. Wallace's estate and his American publisher, Harper & Brothers sued for copyright infringement. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, establishing the precedent that all adaptations are subject to copyright.
  
  Section::::Options.
   Critics have placed the original version's date of authorship in the 1614–18 period, based on the limited evidence available; Massinger's revision was done perhaps c. 1626, for a new production by the King's Men.
  
  Section::::Catalogue.
   That began to change during the 20th century, in response to social and cultural trends of greater tolerance for literature and art that depicted such proscribed material. In the landmark 1933 case "United States v. One Book Called Ulysses", Judge John M. Woolsey of the Southern District of New York ruled that James Joyce's novel "Ulysses", chapters of which had been held obscene over a decade earlier when published in a literary review, could not be barred from the United States purely on the basis of its language and content without considering its literary merit. Second Circuit judges Learned and Augustus Hand upheld Woolsey on appeal, and the book, considered a masterpiece of modernist literature, could be freely published and sold.
  
presuppositions: Work should be releasesd to public domain sooner. The Three Musketeers is just now being released from copyright.
corrections: Work is protected by Disney and kept in public domain or under legal battle.  The Three Musketeers has been in public domain for decades and is not just now being released from copyright.
raw_presuppositions: Work should be releasesd to public domain sooner. The Three Musketeers is just now being released from copyright.
raw_corrections: Work is protected by Disney and kept in public domain or under legal battle.  The Three Musketeers has been in public domain for decades and is not just now being released from copyright.