No Mickey Mouse Effort , an Associated Press article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on October 17, 1998. When Congress began its 19-year extension plan in 1962, it meant that works whose copyrights had been renewed did not go into the public domain when they should have, that is, at the end of 56 years after publication. However, because the renewal system was still in place at that time, many works entered the public domain simply because their copyright owners did not take the simple steps required to renew the copyright. However, and in any event, many of these works had important scholarly and research value and became available for general use a mere 28 years after their initial publication. So, even though the term for most economically valuable works was extended by 19 years in 1962, the public domain continued to grow.
Nothing now goes into the public domain for failure to renew.
For completeness, there is one qualification that should be made. One of the small victories in this sordid affair was effected by historians who convinced Congress not to extend the 2003 date to 2013. Consequently, we will have one more injection into the public domain prior to 2019, namely, very old works that have not been published before 2003. This site contains a collection of documents, articles, letters, links, and other information relevant to the issue of copyright term extension. Notwithstanding adoption of the legislation, I intend to keep this web site in operation with additional information relating to the public domain as I can gather it.