This year a slew of entertainment from 1929 has entered the public domain and can now be reused, re-recorded, re-edited and re-enjoyed for free. Songs, movies, books–the world is  now awash in uncopyrighted cultural riches, and the family members of the creators of those works are now shit out of luck. Oh well. “Moanin’ Low” is a marvelous torch song from 1929, written by Howard Dietz and Ralph Rainger and I hearby present two versions of it, one for free and the other from a 1948 movie that is still under copyright. (Of course this is all theoretical blather since YouTube has cheerfully ignored all copyright laws since it came into existence back in the early aughts). The above is the original Libby Holman recording and below is the painful-to-watch scene from ‘Key Largo’, shot twenty years later, with Clare Trevor struggling to get through the song so she can be awarded with a much-needed drink. Speaking of a much-needed drink…