Events
CAFe Speaker Series: “Celebrating the Public Domain”
Event Start Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 4:00 pm
Event End Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 5:00 pm
Location: Virtual
UMD students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends—join us for the CAFe Speaker Series. (Registration Required)
Abstract:
The public domain plays an essential role in our copyright system, promoting new creativity and enabling access to and preservation of our shared culture. In 1998, the Copyright Term Extension Act froze the US public domain by adding 20 years to the copyright term. No published works entered our public domain for two decades. Then in 2019 the public domain reopened. Since then, there has been a groundswell of excitement about the annual entry of works into public domain. Every year, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain celebrates this occasion with its Public Domain Day articles. Join Professors Boyle and Jenkins for a preview of what will become public domain in 2026, as well as reflections on the history and importance of the public domain and the impact of the long copyright term.
Bio:
James Boyle is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School and founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain. His books include The Line: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Personhood (MIT Press 2024), The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press 2008) and Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society (Harvard University Press 1996). He won the World Technology Network Award for Law for his work on the public domain and was one of the founding Board Members of Creative Commons.
Jennifer Jenkins is a Clinical Professor of Law teaching intellectual property and Director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. She authors the center’s annual Public Domain Day articles and is the author of the new book Music Copyright, Creativity, and Culture from Oxford University Press (2025).
Speaker(s): James Boyle & Jennifer Jenkins