As the year comes to a close, Americans get ready for another list of classic cartoon characters, movies, novels, and audio recordings to enter the public domain. Under U.S. copyright law, these works can be legally shared without permission or fees. The rules vary depending on a variety of factors, but most source materials entering the public domain right now, are doing so 95 years after their initial publication.
Works of art copyrighted from 1930, such as William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage, the first four Nancy Drew novels, the first appearance of Betty Boop, and nine more classic Mickey Mouse cartoons — including the first appearance of Pluto (originally named Royer) — will be added to public domain as of January 1st, meaning that they will be free to use, share and adapt after nearly a century.
Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke University Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and James Boyle, Professor of Law at Duke Law School and Faculty Co-Director of the Center, have compiled a complete list of the public domain entrants for this year that you can check out here.
“I think this is my favorite crop of works yet, which is saying a lot,” Jenkins told NPR. “That’s not only exciting in itself, but it’s really an opportunity to look back at the history of these two incredible animation studios, Fleischer and Disney, and how their styles are imprinted in the DNA of today’s cartoons,” Jenkins said. “That’s just a fun rabbit hole.”
“Max and Dave Fleischer’s characters were drawn from the urban environment they knew so well. Vaudeville, dance-halls, diners, drinking, and drugs were routinely part of the hallucinogenic mayhem…On the other hand, Walt, his brother Roy, and best friend Ub Iwerks, the core of the early Disney enterprises, all had roots in rural middle America. With upbeat music and clever solutions, mechanical and animal troubles of all sorts were resolved with a simple, can-do attitude that Mickey and his pals exude,” said Casey Herbert, who teaches cartoon history at Duke.
There are big names in the world of animation and cartoons, such as Betty Boop, Pluto (originally named Rover, He wouldn’t officially become Mickey’s dog Pluto until 1931’s The Moose Hunt), and Blondie and Dagwood, which will be widely shared starting next year.
- Betty Boop from Fleischer Studios’ Dizzy Dishes and other cartoons
- Rover (later renamed Pluto) from Disney’s The Chain Gang (as an unnamed bloodhound) and The Picnic (as Rover)
- Blondie and Dagwood from the Blondie comic strips by Chic Young
- Flip the Frog from Fiddlesticks and other cartoons, by Ub Iwerks, after he left Disney.
- Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons, the initial week of Mickey Mouse comic strips, and ten new Silly Symphonies cartoons from Disney
In fact, there is a horror Betty Boop movie in the works, following the trend of public domain characters hitting the big screen, like Bambi, Popeye, Peter Pan, and even Minnie Mouse, who is getting her own slasher film set to release next year. But it’s not all horror films, as many works that enter the public domain were used in this year’s biggest films.
Boyle and Jenkins wrote, “In 2025, you may have enjoyed Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, derived from Mary Shelley’s novel, or Wicked: For Good, derived from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Perhaps you are looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming epic IMAX version of The Odyssey, Wuthering Heights starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw, or Lear Rex, a new version of King Lear starring Al Pacino as Lear.”
One work of art inspires another – that is how the public domain feeds creativity.”
