Copiers will be able to emerge from the shadows across the Atlantic. The universal stars of comics Tintin and Popeye, masterpieces of literature, cinema and music by Faulkner, Hemingway, Hitchcock, Ravel – all dated 1929 – enter the American public domain this Wednesday.
Every January 1, thousands of 95-year-old books, films, songs, music, works of art, and comic book characters lose their copyrights in the United States. Which means they can be freely copied, shared, reproduced or adapted without a penny being paid.
A list of Duke University
It is the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at the Faculty of Law of Duke University, in North Carolina, which makes public the list of cultural works passed down to posterity each year at the end of December. This January 1, the stars are the sailor Popeye, created in 1929 by the American Elzie Crisler Segar, and the reporter Tintin, presented by the Belgian Hergé the same year.
“In recent years, we have celebrated the entry into the public domain of fascinating characters like Mickey Mouse (2024) and Winnie the Pooh (2022),” recalls the Center’s director, Jennifer Jenkins, on her website. “In 2025, copyrights expire for more incarnations of Mickey dating from 1929 and the first versions of Popeye and Tintin,” says the lawyer.
End of “copyright” for the Bolero
The year 1929 was also that of major works of American and European literature, adapted several times for cinema. The sound and the fury de William Faulkner, Farewell to arms d’Ernest Hemingway, A room of one’s own by the British Virginia Woolf, or the first English translation of In the West, nothing new by the German Erich Maria Note. These legendary novels also enter the American public domain on Wednesday.
On the cinema side, Duke University retains Blackmail by Alfred Hitchcock, the first British talking film, and The Black Guardby the American John Ford, both released in 1929.
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In song and music, the first version of Singin’ in the Rain by the Americans Ignacio Herbert Brown and Arthur Freed, adapted many times, also lost its copyright. Just like the famous Bolero by Frenchman Maurice Ravel, composed in 1928 but whose “copyright” dates from the following year.
