January 1st is Public Domain Day, when cultural items and other copyrighted materials enter the public domain. These works may be used freely, without obtaining permission from or compensating a copyright holder. This year we welcome literary, film, and artworks from 1929, as well as sound recordings from 1924. Here are some of the most anticipated items entering the public domain today.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”
In the literary world, classics such as William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own are now in the public domain. Another major written work that joins them is the original German version of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet (Briefe en einen jungen Dichter).
The poster from Cecil B. DeMille’s “Dynamite”
Last year Mickey Mouse entered the domain via Steamboat Willie, but this year a dozen more films featuring the iconic Disney character have been added, including Mickey’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid. Though the first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer, premiered in 1927, 1929 was a big year for the technology. Both Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film Blackmail and Cecil B. DeMille’s first sound film Dynamite debuted in 1929 and are now a part of the public domain.
A page from E.C. Segar’s “Gobs of Work”
In 1929 E.C. Segar, a cartoonist who created the comic strips Thimble Theatre and Sappo, launched the sailor Popeye as a supporting character in the Thimble Theatre. Popeye the Sailor did not become its own cartoon until the early 1930s, but the character is now in the public domain. Another character joining the domain this year is Tintin, best known from The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian cartoonist George Remi, who used the pen name Hergé.
“My Way’s Cloudy,” by Marian Anderson
Popular musical compositions that join the public domain today include Singin’ in the Rain by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown and An American in Paris by George Gershwin. Sound recordings that are now public include My Way’s Cloudy, recorded by Marian Anderson; Rhapsody in Blue, recorded by George Gershwin; and It Had to Be You, recorded by Isham Jones Orchestra and Marion Harris.
René Magritte, “The Treachery of Images.”
When it comes to visual art, copyright shifts are a little more tricky. Unlike many countries, whose public domain laws relate to an amount of time passed after the creator’s death, U.S. laws concern the work’s dates of publication. In much of Europe, works are transferred to the public domain 70 years after the creator’s death, but in the U.S. works of art that were published or registered in 1929 have now entered the public domain. This includes René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, Salvador Dalí’s The Great Masturbator and The Accommodations of Desire, Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey, Kawamura Kiyoo’s Founding of the Nation, Julio Romero de Torres’ La Fuensanta, and M. C. Escher’s Strada di Scanno.
