Today is Public Domain Day!

[thewayne]

An interesting array of materials are losing their copyright chains in the USA today, including The Marx Brothers, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Mouse, and Tintin and Popeye, amongst others.

The Slashdot summary:
Thousands of copyrighted works from 1929, including Mickey Mouse's first speaking appearance and original versions of comic characters Popeye and Tintin, entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2025, as their 95-year copyright terms expired.

Popeye debuted in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip, while Tintin first appeared in Georges Remi's "Les Aventures de Tintin." These original character versions can now be freely used without permission or fees. Literary classics joining the public domain include William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms," and Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own."

Musical compositions entering the public domain include George Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'." The original 1929 recordings remain protected until 2030 under separate copyright rules.

Notable films becoming public domain include the Marx Brothers' first feature "The Cocoanuts," Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film "Blackmail," and several Mickey Mouse animations where the character debuts his white gloves and speaks his first words. Sound recordings from 1924, including performances by Marian Anderson and George Gershwin, also entered the public domain under the Music Modernization Act's 100-year term for historical recordings.

A very complete list is found here:
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/

And the Slashdot link is found here:
https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/01/1711230/tintin-popeye-enter-public-domain-as-1929-works-released

Comments

[silveradept]

It's always good to have more things in the public domain, although I still think that 95 years is far too long for such a thing to stay in copyright. And the lifetime of the author plus seventy years is also at least seventy years too long for things to stay. But, with each year, we get ever closer to being able to replicate what was the supposed pornographic Disney mural, and Disney doesn't get to claim copyright over any of it.