It’s January, which means another batch of copyrighted work is now public domain – Ars Technica
Screenshot
More Mickey Mouse versions, early talkies, and classic novels all go public.
It’s January, and for people in the US, that means the same thing it’s meant every January since 2019: a new batch of previously copyrighted works have entered the public domain. People can publish, modify, and adapt these works and their characters without needing to clear rights or pay royalties.This year’s introductions cover books, plays, movies, art, and musical compositions from 1929, plus sound recordings from 1924. Most works released from 1923 onward are protected for 95 years after their release under the terms of 1998’s Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. This law prevented new works from entering the public domain for two decades.As it does every year, the Duke University Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a rundown of the most significant works entering the public domain this year.Significant novels include Ernest Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms, the first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.Many of the films on the list showcase the then-new addition of sound to movies, including the first all-color feature-length film with sound throughout (Warner Bros.’ On With the Show!) and the first films with sound from directors like Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred Hitchcock. Buster Keaton’s final silent film, Spite Marriage, is also on the list. Musical compositions include notables like Singin’ in the Rain and Tiptoe Through the Tulips.On the Disney front, we get the Silly Symphony short The Skeleton Dance, as well as a dozen more Mickey Mouse shorts. These include the first films to depict Mickey wearing white gloves and the first to show him talking—as we covered last year, it’s only the 1920s-era versions of these characters who have entered the public domain, so each new version is significant for people looking to use these characters without drawing the ire of Disney and other copyright holders.As far as culturally significant characters, there’s nothing in 2025 that’s as significant as Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse were in 2024 (Disney being at least partly responsible for why it takes copyrighted works so long to enter the public domain in the first place). But we do get a version of Popeye the Sailor as well as the initial version of Belgian reporter/adventurer Tintin. Whether the specific spinach-eating version of Popeye is in the public domain is a matter of some debate, though—Popeye didn’t start getting his powers from spinach until 1931, but the copyright on that version of Popeye may not have been renewed in the first place.The Duke University piece, written by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, is worth a read not just because it highlights this year’s most significant public domain additions but because it calls attention to modern works that have built on and benefitted from public domain releases. Some of those works include Wicked, the 2024 film adapted from the 2003 musical adapted (extremely loosely!) from Gregory Maguire’s Wizard of Oz-inspired 1995 novel; and Percival Everett’s James, a retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, a runaway slave.Ars Technica has been separating the signal from
the noise for over 25 years. With our unique combination of
technical savvy and wide-ranging interest in the technological arts
and sciences, Ars is the trusted source in a sea of information. After
all, you don’t need to know everything, only what’s important.
