Tintin “free of charge”. 95 years after its creation, Hergé’s hero enters the American public domain. He is not alone, since Elzie Crisler Segar’s Popeye as well as masterpieces of literature, cinema and music dating from 1929 suffered the same fate.
Nothing abnormal in all this: in the United States, a work falls into the public domain when its 95th year rings, leaving everyone the right to copy, share or adapt it without paying the royalties. ‘author.
Tintin among the Sovietsthe first opus of the adventures of the famous reporter, is therefore concerned. This comic was in fact pre-published in serial form in The Little Twentieththe youth supplement of the Belgian daily The Twentieth Centuryfrom January 10, 1929 to May 8, 1930.
A usual but limited procedure
It is the Center for Public Domain Studies at the Duke University Law School, in North Carolina (southeast), which makes public the list of cultural works passed down to posterity each year at the end of December. This year, it’s bringing back some beautiful people since, in addition to the first adventures of Popeye and Tintin, we find The sound and the fury de William Faulkner, Farewell to arms d’Ernest Hemingway, A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf, or the first English translation of Nothing new in the west by the German Erich Maria Note. In 2022, this last novel underwent a third film adaptation with the film by Edward Berger.
On the cinema side, Alfred Hitchcock (Blackmailfirst British singing film) and John Ford (The Black Guardthe first non-silent feature film by the American director) are also included in the list. On the song and music side, the first version of Singin’ in the Rain of Ignacio Herbert Brown and Arthur Freed, the Bolero by Ravel and An American in Paris by George Gershwin also enter the public domain.
This is the rule. The principle is that copyright is intended to remunerate the creator, not to benefit his heirs. to eternal life. At some point, the work belongs to society.
But, in reality, the duration of 95 years only applies to American territory. Now Georges Remi, known as Hergé, the father of Tintin, was of Belgian nationality. His heirs will therefore be able to continue to collect copyright in Europe, for example if a producer decides to once again adapt the adventures of the famous golf-pants reporter for the cinema and the film is distributed on this side of the world. ‘Atlantic.
“For non-US authors, local law does not apply”
“There is a difference between American and non-American authors,” explained lawyer Alain Berenboom, specialist in intellectual rights, on the French-speaking public channel RTBF. For non-US authors, local law does not apply. Under the Berne International Convention, he specifies, “non-American works enter the public domain 50 years after the death of their author.” Since Hergé died in 1983, almost all of his work will enter the public domain in the United States in 2034, while in Belgium it will be necessary to wait 70 years after his death. Tintin will therefore enter the Belgian public domain in 2054, twenty years after the United States. However, if a film can only be broadcast without paying copyright in the United States, its distribution inevitably becomes less interesting.
230 million albums and counting
The Moulinsart Foundation, which manages Hergé’s legacy, can still sleep soundly for a few decades. With 230 million albums sold to date, plus one to two million copies each year, Tintin is a booming business. The rights collected on adaptations (including Steven Spielberg’s film in 2011) and derivative products complete this war chest.
-We don’t mess around with Tintin’s wallet. Those who tried to monopolize Hergé’s work without a bargain, whether to celebrate the master or to profit from it, found themselves before the court. Belgian newspapers are careful not to publish even the slightest box from a reporter’s album, even for information purposes, because they know that they will be crossed and amended. Nick Rodwell, the husband of Fanny Vlaminck, Hergé’s widow, doesn’t let anything slip.
“For three decades, the Briton has managed with an iron fist the artistic and commercial legacy of Hergé, the brilliant creator of Tintin, who died on March 3, 1983. An immense responsibility, given the weight of the Belgian author in the world of comics, both cultural and economic…”, wrote in 2022 The World. We could also read that the prospect of seeing this monument of comics enter the public domain is inevitably poorly received in Moulinsart, which would lose a large part of the control exercised today over Hergé’s work, as well as the substantial income.
But how can we ensure that in 2053, in a little less than thirty years, Tintin does not fall into the Belgian public domain? Legally, the thing is far from simple, unless you discover new, unpublished plates by Hergé from 2054. They would effectively be protected by copyright. But what about the rest of the work? Should we extend it, reinvent it, decline it in another way?
“Tintin, it’s me”, said Hergé
The problem is that, during his lifetime, Hergé expressed the desire that the adventures of Tintin not continue after his death. “There are certainly lots of things that my colleagues can do without me and even much better than me. But to bring Tintin to life, to bring Haddock, Tournesol, the Dupondts, all the others to life, I believe that I am the only one who can do it: Tintin, it’s me, exactly as Flaubert said ”Madame Bovary, it’s me !”.
Asterix, Blake and Mortimer, Lucky Luke… Examples of comic book characters whose lives should have ended with the death of their authors are legion. And yet, despite the will more or less clearly expressed by the latter, new albums have been published calling on other talents. The cultural and economic capital of these works, the public’s attachment to them and the desire to continue to celebrate the historical masters of comics have made the difference. But where does morality remain if the author expressed reservations during his lifetime regarding the continuation of his work?
There is no shortage of legal tips for reconciling the irreconcilable. Tintin is today a brand that is available on mugs, t-shirts and via statuettes, as well as on the big screen. In the United States, the rights holders of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan’s father, are using trademark law to continue to control the volatile character.
Also in the United States, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act passed in 1998 extended the term of copyright protection for copyrighted works by 20 years. Under pressure from Disney, it made it possible to postpone the entry into the public domain of the first works featuring the extremely famous mouse.
So, while we’re at it, why not change the law in the Flat Country? Save Tintin from the clutches of globalization, keep him in his native Belgium, if not through capital, then at least through spirit? This could be the subject of a great parliamentary debate at a time when the Belgian political world is arguing over what the word “culture” means, Thunder from Brest!
