Public Domain Day 2025

[robcat2075]

Article about some of the many things that go PD in the US on Jan 1 2025

January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924!

Quite a few more Mickey Mouse cartoons, Ravel's Bolero... the original version of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was already PD but soon his first recording of it is PD too. The first Marx Bros movie, thousands of books and plays, and many classic songs.



Cornell maintains an extensive guide to copyright term situations I presume many of the dates on that chart will increment by one on Jan 1.

Remember that the copyright on an audio recording is a separate thing from the copyright on the words or musical notes it records.

Also, "trademark" and "copyright" are different concepts. For example, some comic strips with Popeye in them will go PD on Jan 1, but "Popeye" and his image can potentially retain trademark protection forever.

And, of course, none of this goes to making the bots of the social media giants stop enforcing false copyright claims and to making them enforce valid ones.

[AtomicClock]

Ravel's orchestration of Pictures will become PD.

[AndrewMeronek]

This page on Wikipedia might be useful for the curious. Standard warnings about Wikipedia accuracy apply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_in_music

[baileyman]

So much of our common heritage has been locked up in copyright investment portfolios. Later is better than never, but only a little bit.