A vast array of 1929 works of art including movies, books, journals, magazines, lectures, sermons, maps, music, fine art, and more, have formally become public domain as of January 1, 2025.
“The Karnival Kid,” the first Walt Disney short in which Mickey Mouse speaks, Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound picture “Blackmail,” Clara Bow’s debut talkie “The Wild Party,” and G.W. Pabst’s breakthrough silent epic Pandora’s Box, are just a few of the thousands of titles celebrating copyright expiration that are now free and fair to reproduce, spread, and build upon.
If an original work is not covered by an intellectual property right, commonly referred to as a copyright, it immediately enters the public domain. The majority of creative works have 95-year copyrights, although some have shorter periods and some, like those on numerous audio recordings, have 100-year ones. After 95 years, the work freely becomes available for anyone to use.
The new class this year does, however, feature some classic pieces, such as Arthur Freed’s song “Singin’ in the Rain,” which he later helped create into the popular Hollywood musical, George Gershwin’s “symphonic poem” “An American in Paris,” that was later turned into the Academy Award-winning movie, Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro,” and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” by Alfred Dubin and Joseph Burke that was given new life by Tiny Tim’s rendition in the 2010 horror movie “Insidious.”
“The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “A Farwell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, and “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf are the three classroom classics that are making their way into the public domain this year. Both Hemingway’s “WWI” romance and Faulkner’s tale of the breakup of a refined Southern family have previously been made into two movies. Now, fans of all three books can obtain the rights to remix, reproduce, or reinvent the works without having to go through the estates of different writers.
This year, two of Dashiell Hammett’s best-known works—”The Maltese Falcon” and “Red Harvest”—will enter the public domain. The list also includes Patrick Hamilton’s play “Rope,” which Hitchcock later adapted into his 1948 film of the same name, and John Steinbeck’s debut novel “Cup of Gold.” “The Seven Dials Mystery” by Agatha Christie is also available for adaptation.
As for cartoon characters, E.C. Segar’s “Popeye” and Heregé’s “Tintin” are also entering the public domain. They join the likes of other characters including Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey Mouse.
In terms of losing anything by someone’s original work entering the public domain, Professor at Duke University School of Law Jennifer Jenkins told CBS News that “the original copyright holder has already benefited from 95 years of protection.”
For the majority of works from 1929, Jenkins added that “no one’s losing anything because they are out of circulation.” This can be beneficial for everyone since they can now be shared, “rescue them from obscurity,” as well as “discover, enjoy, and breathe new life to them.”
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