Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1958 would enter the public domain on January 1, 2015, where they would be “free as the air to common use.” Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2054 . Read more…
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What Could Have Entered the Public Domain in 2015?
When it finally rolls out of the garage, Bloodhound SSC will hit a dizzying 1, 000mph . But before it can do that, the team behind the vehicle needs to put it all together. Read more… 
Audiophiles have a laundry list of reasons why you should be buying your music on vinyl, but with DJ Qbert’s new album Extraterrestria, aspiring turntablists now have a reason to skip the MP3s too. Using printed MIDI technology from a company called Novalia, the artwork in the vinyl’s sleeve doubles as a DJ controller for Algoriddim’s djay iOS app. Read more… 
If Times Square is too gaudy, crowded, and frankly insane for you, then there is another New York tradition worth your New Year’s Eve—one that is, in fact, ending tonight. For the past fifty years, the Pratt Institute has set out its amazing collection of big old steam whistles out on the lawn of its Brooklyn campus . Tonight’s your last chance to steam blast your way into the new year. Read more… 
Every decade produces iconic pieces of futurism that help to define a generation. For the 1960s it was The Jetsons and Star Trek . For the 1970s it was Future Shock and Soylent Green . What about the 1980s? It was almost certainly Back to the Future Part II . Read more… 
1910 was just two years after the first Model T was produced by Ford, and cars were quickly taking over the New York City’s streets. It was also the first year NYC began keeping track of traffic deaths. And now, the number of deaths has dipped below that first year. Read more… 
We debunked a lot of fake viral photos this year. Eighty-six, to be exact. And that doesn’t even include all those fake toilet photos from the Sochi Olympics , those fake Ebola cures , and all the lies that UberFacts helped spread . It was a busy year for fakes. Read more… 
An anonymous reader writes: Have you enjoyed reading the constant flow of news about how red light cameras are failing? They’ve been installed under the shadow of corruption, they don’t increase safety, and major cities are dropping them. Well, the good news is that red-light cameras are on the decline in the U.S. The bad news is that speeding cameras are on the rise. From the article: “The number of U.S. communities using red-light cameras has fallen 13 percent, to 469, since the end of 2012, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry. That includes the 24 towns in New Jersey that participated in a pilot program that ended this month with no pending legislation to revive it. Meanwhile, the institute estimates that 137 communities use speed cameras, up from 115 at the end of 2011.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.