3. They are granted to the public domain by the creator or their agent
(i.e., the rights holder).
Because of its emphasis on literary works, Project Gutenberg has mostly
focused on items for which the copyright term has expired. Until 1998,
this included items published 75 years earlier. For example, items from
1920 entered the public domain when their copyrights expired in 1995.
The US Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 changed the term to 95 years
for most literary works, so new items (from 1923 onward) will not enter
the public domain before 2019.
[Illustration: 0003]