What do the universal stars of comics Tintin by Hergé and Popeye by Elzie Crisler Segar, the masterpieces of literature, cinema and music of Faulkner, Hemingway, Hitchcock, Ravel have in common? All are dated 1929 and all fall into the American public domain this Wednesday.
Every January 1, thousands of 95-year-old books, films, songs, music, artwork, and comic book characters lose their copyrights in the United States. Which means that they can be freely copied, shared, reproduced or adapted without a cent being paid to any rights holders.
It is the Center for the Study of the Public Domain 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.
“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, copyright expires for more incarnations of Mickey dating from 1929 and the first versions of Popeye and Tintin,” the lawyer further indicates.
-The year 1929 was also that of major works of American and European literature, adapted several times for cinema. “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “A Farewell to Arms” by 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 Remarque.
On the cinema side, Duke University selected “Blackmail” by Alfred Hitchcock, the first British talking film, and “The Black Guard”, by the American John Ford, both released in 1929.
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 loses its copyright, just like the extremely famous “Boléro” by the Frenchman Maurice Ravel , composed in 1928, but whose “copyright” dates from the following year.
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