“A Farewell to Arms” and the cartoon figure Popeye the Sailor are just a few of the works of art that will become public domain in the US on Wednesday.
Books, movies, and other works of art in the US no longer have to follow copyright laws after 95 years. Sound records made before 1924 will also no longer be subject to copyright laws.
Once a work is in the public domain, anyone can copy, share, repeat, or change it without having to pay the owner of the rights.
This year’s crop includes well-known characters from around the world, like Tintin, who first appeared in a Belgian newspaper in 1929, and Popeye the Sailor, who was made by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain puts out a list every December of the culture works that lose their copyright at the end of the year.
The list is on the center’s website. The center is part of the Duke University School of Law in North Carolina, which is in the southeastern US.
“In the past years we have celebrated an exciting cast of public domain characters,” the center’s website said. “These include the original Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as the final versions of Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.”
“In 2025 copyright expires over more aspects of Mickey from his 1929 incarnations, along with the initial versions of Popeye and Tintin.”
On January 1, several books became available to everyone in the US. These include “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf, and the first English translation of “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque.
“Blackmail,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and “The Black Watch,” John Ford’s first sound movie, are two movies that will be in the public domain.
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Pieces of music released in 1929, like “Bolero” by Maurice Ravel and “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin, will no longer have copyrights. However, recordings from 1924 or earlier will be in the public domain.
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