This Canadian website lists authors whose work has become public domain on 1 January 2008. This will vary country by country but the Internet will probably be introduced to them as early as possible. The list includes works by authors like Walter Runciman, Philip Snowden, Elihu Root, Amelia Earhart (presuming she really died), Maurice Ravel, Alfred Adler, Edith Wharton, and hundreds more.

CopyrightWatch.ca » Blog Archive » Public Domain Day 2008 [via Wordsy.com]

Welcome to 2008, and let’s welcome into the Public Domain thousands, indeed millions, of creative works from the collective cultural past of our little planet and its many countries. Yes, it’s January 1st, Public Domain Day in most countries of the world, where copyright runs from the death of the author of a work until the end of the 50th, 70th, or some other year thereafter.

However, the situation is never too clear nor easy as the site points out:

Woe be unto anyone who hopes to publish a comprehensive collection of Tyrrell’s important materials on his explorations in western Canada, beginning in the early 1880s, the important raw stuff of history which is up to 125 years old by now!