Public Domain Day
As of January 1, 2025, works published in 1929 in the United States are now in the Public Domain and no longer have copyright protection. Next year, published works from 1930 will go into the Public Domain.
Some examples of works entering the Public Domain include:
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Mickey Mouse feature films, including The Karnival Kid (where we hear Mickey’s voice for the first time)
Hallelujah (one of the first films from a major studio with an all African-American cast)
Popeye and Tintin characters
Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin'
Gershwin’s An American in Paris
Ravel’s Bolero
Singin’ in the Rain.
Visit this link to see more Public Domain content: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/
To learn more about the Public Domain, please visit the Library of Congress, Copyright Office and Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Also, Cornell University Library maintains a very useful chart called Copyright Term and the Public Domain that can help in understanding copyright terms.
Article prepared by Yale Library's Scholarly Communication and Collection Strategy department