Hello folks,
I had a concept for a game jam, and I'd like to hear what people think about it/gauge interest.
At the beginning of each year, the copyright protection for some older intellectual properties (i.e. books, movies, sound recordings/music, etc) stops functioning, and the works enter the public domain. The rules vary from country to country; some, such as much of Europe and Australia, wait until 70 years after the passing of the work's creator (or creators, as several people are used as the metric for movies), so any work by any creator who passed away in 1951 or earlier is public domain. In the US, the time span is 95 years after publication - so anything published in 1926 or earlier is public domain as of January 2022. In short, every year there's a new batch of movies, music, and stories that are freely available to use in new works, the same way that, for instance, Disney movies are often based off of public-domain fairy tales.
Essentially, my concept for this game jam is that entries would be themed around works that entered the public domain this year - whether that's music, movies, books, art, poetry, or something else entirely. I don't have much else to say, really, but I'm open to ideas for making this more specific or tuning requirements.
Here are some lists of things that entered the public domain this year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_public_domain
https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2022/
https://citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov/public-domain-2022/
https://americanwritersmuseum.org/new-works-to-enter-the-public-domain-in-2022/