The National Library of Spain reports that 181 authors enter the public domain in 2020

Every January 1, new writers, painters, musicians and artists from all areas enter the public domain. This means that their artistic works may be edited, reproduced or disseminated publicly, without the restrictions established by copyright.

In Spain, artistic works enter the public domain after 70 years after the death of their author, in accordance with the intellectual property law of 1987. However, for authors who died before that year, the term will be 80 years. Therefore, this year the works of those authors who died in 1939 enter the public domain.

The BNE and the free access to intellectual heritage

Each year, the National Library of Spain studies, publishes and digitizes the work of authors who are part of its catalogue and that year enter into the public domain. This year the list consists of 181 authors, among them Antonio Machado, Ciro Bayo or Agustín Espinosa. The works of these authors are available in the Hispanic Digital Library, the portal that gives access to the digitalized funds of the BNE.

The list of authors in the public domain is open and collaborative, so that any interested person can collaborate in its elaboration by proposing Spanish authors with works in the catalogue of the National Library of Spain, who died between 1900 and 1939, and that are not yet included in the listings.

In addition, in order to enrich the information, the BNE has launched a collaborative project entitled “From the public domain: Spanish authors who died in 1939”, within its comunidad.bne.es platform, developed in collaboration with Red.es. Users who wish to share their knowledge and experience will help increase the data that the BNE has related to these authors, adding information such as his/her place and year of birth, occupation and / or biographical sketch. This project joins others as “La mujer del XIX [escrito en femenino]”, where different authors prestige items are rescued as Blanca de los Rios, Pardo Bazán or Patrocinio Biedma, integrated into the work “Spanish, American and Lusitanas women, painted by themselves”, so users can sort the stereotypes presented, catalogue illustrations that accompany many of the texts and complete data on their authors.

With the available information, the BNE has created complete files, which have been published as open and reusable datasets, in different formats, in the data catalog.gob.es.

This action is part of the BNE's strategy for opening and promoting the reuse of its data and digital collections, along with other projects such as BNEscolar.