2025 Public Domain Day: Popeye, Tintin, more legendary artwork up for grabs
With 2025 not even a week old, predictions about what the new year has in store have already begun.
Maybe a new Rihanna album (don't cross your fingers) or another Super Bowl win for Travis Kelce and the Chiefs or maybe .... a punk rock version of "Singin' in the Rain"?
The title track from the hit play and movie entered the public domain Wednesday alongside a bevy of other songs, characters and literature first published in the mid-1920s.
What is public domain day?
Each year a fresh batch of creative works becomes available for free use on public domain day (Jan. 1), meaning their copyright times out. In practice, that looks like other artists being able to take a time-honored character and add their own creative license: Charlie Brown as a club DJ, for example, or Elmo as a CIA agent (though none of those specific figures are yet eligible for public domain).
Which books are now public domain?
This year, Virginia Woolf's famed novel "A Room of One's Own" entered the public domain alongside Ernest Hemingway’s "A Farewell to Arms" and Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" (the translation). Among the literature class from 1929 − the year available for free use in 2025 − each work was singular for its time. Now, other writers can opt to bring the stories back to life with modern contours.
When does Mickey Mouse become public domain? It's complicated, but Popeye and Tintin join Steamboat Willie
The results of public domain can be surprising. Without the confines of strict copyright law, communal use can represent a wild romp for characters long-bound to specific storylines.
Steamboat Willie, for example, became a horror star in 2024. This year, Mickey Mouse (the modern name for Steamboat Willie) enters the domain again with his first words. Since copyrights tend to be airtight, public domain only applies to a specific version of a character portrayed during the expiring year − everything after that is still unavailable.
Both Popeye and Tintin will walk the path of Steamboat Willie in 2025 − free for use in their original versions. Olive Oyl, Popeye's spunky side-kick and sweetheart is already unbound from copyright.
These songs are now public domain
Music from 1924 will also enter the public domain this year, with tunes like "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager and "What is this Thing Called Love?" by Cole Porter available for remix.
In the U.S. the laws governing public domain differ slightly, relating to when a work was published rather than when its creator died, which is how many countries in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia determine copyright expiration.
Contributing: Camille Fine