For most of us, January 1 is New Year’s Day. But for the copyright lawyers among us, it is Public Domain Day, when a new batch of copyright materials first published back in the 1920s lose their intellectual property protection. Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, who direct the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, provide an overview of some of the best-known works that are now in the public domain, along with an argument for the importance of having intellectual property protection eventually expire, in “January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924!” They also try to answer some of the big questions, like: “Popeye was already in the public domain, but he does not eat spinach until a 1933 cartoon. So is “Popeye-eating-spinach” in the public domain yet?

Here is a very limited selection from Jenkins and Boyle of some works that have just entered the public domain. With links! Because now and into the future, these works in the public domain.

Books and Plays

Films

  • A dozen more Mickey Mouse animations (including Mickey’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid)
  • The Cocoanuts, directed by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley (the first Marx Brothers feature film)
  • The Broadway Melody, directed by Harry Beaumont (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture)
  • The Hollywood Revue of 1929, directed by Charles Reisner (featuring the song “Singin’ in the Rain”)
  • The Skeleton Dance, directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks (the first Silly Symphony short from Disney)
  • Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s first sound film)
  • Hallelujah, directed by King Vidor (one of the first film from a major studio with an all African-American cast)
  • The Wild Party, directed by Dorothy Arzner (Clara Bow’s first “talkie”)
  • Welcome Danger, directed by Clyde Bruckman and Malcolm St. Clair (the first full-sound comedy starring Harold Lloyd)
  • On With the Show, directed by Alan Crosland (the first all-talking, all-color, feature-length film)
  • Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), directed by G.W. Pabst
  • Show Boat, directed by Harry A. Pollard (adaptation of the novel and musical)
  • The Black Watch, directed by John Ford (Ford’s first sound film)
  • Spite Marriage, directed by Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton (Keaton’s final silent feature)
  • Say It with Songs, directed by Lloyd Bacon (follow-up to The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool)
  • Dynamite, directed by Cecil B. DeMille (DeMille’s first sound film)
  • Gold Diggers of Broadway, directed Roy Del Ruth

Characters

  • E. C. Segar, Popeye (in “Gobs of Work” from the Thimble Theatre comic strip)
  • Hergé (Georges Remi), Tintin (in “Les Aventures de Tintin” from the magazine Le Petit Vingtième)

Musical Compositions

Sound Recordings from 1924

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