It’s a new American tradition. January, for followers of music and literature, marked when some classics written a lifetime ago entered the public domain. A 1976 copyright law had granted authors and composers 75-year copyrights on their works. In 1998, just before the oldest works protected by that 1976 law were about to enter the public domain, Congress extended the term to 95 years.

Finally, on Jan. 1, 2019, some of those old works entered the public domain.