Public Domain Audiobook Maker: Classics with a Full Cast

In depth

What public domain means for audiobooks

A public domain audiobook maker turns a book whose copyright has expired into an audiobook you can keep, share or sell, and with FullCastBook that means a narrator plus a voice for every character. But the public domain is not one worldwide list. Whether a book is free to use depends on the country, so check before you produce. This is general information, not legal advice.

In the United States, as of 2026, works published before 1931 are in the public domain; books from 1930 joined on January 1, 2026, when their 95-year term ran out. The UK, the EU and many other countries count from the author's death instead: life plus 70 years, which as of 2026 frees authors who died in 1955 or earlier. Some countries use other terms; mainland China, for example, uses life plus 50 years.

So one book can be free in one country and protected in another. George Orwell died in 1950, so Animal Farm (1945) has been public domain in the UK since 2021, but it won't enter the US public domain until 2041. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930) went the other way: public domain in the US since 2026, but Faulkner died in 1962, so in life-plus-70 countries it stays protected until 2033. Translations, modern introductions, notes and illustrations carry their own copyright, so work from the original text or a translation that is itself public domain.