2024 in American public domain | |
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![]() One of the most notable works that entered the public domain in 2024 is the Steamboat Willie depiction of Mickey Mouse. The Walt Disney Company had previously lobbied for the extension of copyright length in the United States in order to prevent Mickey Mouse and other characters from entering the public domain, resulting in the Copyright Term Extension Act. [1] | |
Nickname | Public Domain Day |
Date(s) | January 1, 2024 |
Frequency | Annually |
Country | United States |
Previous event | 2023 in American public domain |
Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books published in 1928, films released in 1928, and other works published in 1928, enter the public domain in 2024. Sound recordings that were published in 1923 enter the public domain.
The most famous work to enter the public domain in the United States in 2024 is Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks's animated film Steamboat Willie , which was the third appearance of Mickey Mouse, but the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to be released. Prior to January 1, 2024, the short film was owned by the Walt Disney Company. Other famous characters' original iterations such as A. A. Milne's Tigger and J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan also entered the public domain.
Notable films such as Charlie Chaplin's The Circus and Harold Lloyd's Speedy and notable literature such as Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence also entered the public domain. Notable songs entering the public domain included I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby ; Makin' Whoopee ; and You're the Cream in My Coffee .
The Copyright Term Extension Act provides that works published in 1928 enter the public domain on January 1, 2024. [2] Works that are published in 1928 and then translated in a later year may still be copyrighted. [3] Sound recordings are treated differently and sound recordings from 1923 entered the public domain in 2024. [4]
The earliest incarnation of Mickey Mouse as well as Minnie Mouse entered the public domain in 2024. The most notable media featuring these characters is Steamboat Willie , but both The Gallopin' Gaucho and the silent version of Plane Crazy also entered the public domain that year. [3] The sound version of Plane Crazy, released in 1929, does not enter the public domain until 2025. [5]
Notable films that entered the public domain in the United States in 2024 include The Cameraman , [3] Lights of New York , [3] Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, [3] The Passion of Joan of Arc , [3] The Singing Fool , [3] Harold Lloyd's final silent theatrical release Speedy , [3] In Old Arizona , [3] The Man Who Laughs, [3] Should Married Men Go Home? , [3] The Wind , [3] The Wedding March , [3] The Crowd , [3] The Last Command , [3] Street Angel , [3] and The Docks of New York . [6]
The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, introducing the character Tigger, entered the public domain in the United States in 2024, [3] as did Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. [3] The original German language publications of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and Urformen der Kunst by Karl Blossfeldt also entered the public domain in the United States, but translations published after 1928 may remain copyrighted. [3] [7]
Additional notable works entering the public domain in the United States in 2024 include Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, [3] Orlando by Virginia Woolf, [3] Dark Princess by W.E.B. Du Bois, [3] Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, [3] The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, [3] Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág, [3] Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, [3] The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, [3] West-Running Brook by Robert Frost, [3] The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, [3] Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon, [7] Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle by Edgar Rice Burroughs, [6] Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead, [6] The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers, [6] Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley, [6] The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly, [6] Last Post by Ford Madox Ford, [6] The Tower by W. B. Yeats, [6] and Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island by H. G. Wells. [6]
The original editions of The Missing Chums , Hunting for Hidden Gold , and The Shore Road Mystery of The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon also entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. [6]
The Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain list of musical compositions entering the public domain included: [3]
The Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain list of sound recordings entering the public domain included: [3]
Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white gloves.
Plane Crazy is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The cartoon, released by the Walt Disney Studios, was the first appearance of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, and was originally a silent film. It was given a test screening to a theater audience on May 15, 1928, and an executive from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer saw the film, but failed to pick up a distributor. Later that year, Disney released Mickey's first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which was an enormous success; Plane Crazy was officially released as a sound cartoon on March 17, 1929. It was the fourth Mickey film to be given a wide release after Steamboat Willie, The Gallopin' Gaucho and The Barn Dance (1929).
Minerva "Minnie" Mouse is an American cartoon character created by the Walt Disney Company. As the longtime sweetheart of Mickey Mouse, she is an anthropomorphic mouse with white gloves, a red or pink bow, blue polka-dotted dress, white bloomers and low-heeled shoes occasionally with ribbons on them. The Mickey Mouse comic strip story "The Gleam" by Merrill De Maris and Floyd Gottfredson first gave her full name as Minerva Mouse, although this is seldom used.
The Gallopin' Gaucho is a 1928 American animated short film and the second short film featuring Mickey Mouse to be produced, following Plane Crazy and preceding Steamboat Willie. The Disney studios completed the silent version in August 1928, but did not release it in order to work on Steamboat Willie. The Gallopin' Gaucho was released, with sound, after Steamboat Willie on December 30 of the same year.
"Steamboat Bill" is a 1910 song with music by the vaudeville group The Leighton Brothers and lyrics by Ren Shields which became one of the first hit recordings in the United States through its 1911 recording by Arthur Collins, mostly known for the music in Disney's Steamboat Willie, the first released Mickey Mouse sound cartoon. Steamboat Bill also appeared in the 1928 Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr.
"Who's Sorry Now?" is a popular song with music written by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. It was published in 1923 as a waltz. Isham Jones had a hit recording in 1923 with the song arranged as a foxtrot. Later sheet music arrangements, such as the 1946 publication that was a tie-in to the film A Night in Casablanca, were published in 2
2 time. Other popular versions in 1923 were by Marion Harris, Original Memphis Five, Lewis James, and Irving Kaufman.
Public Domain Day (PDD) is an observance of when copyrights expire and works enter into the public domain. This legal transition of copyright works into the public domain usually happens every year on January 1 based on the individual copyright laws of each country.
"Makin' Whoopee" is a jazz/blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!. Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics and Walter Donaldson composed the music for the song as well as for the entire musical.
"You're the Cream in My Coffee" is a popular song published in 1928. Hit recordings were by Annette Hanshaw, Ben Selvin, Ted Weems and Ruth Etting.
"I'm Sitting on Top of the World" is a popular song with music written by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. It was published in 1925. This composition is not to be confused with, "Sitting on Top of the World" written by Walter Vinson and notably performed by Taj Mahal & Corey Harris.
"Yes! We Have No Bananas" is an American novelty song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn published March 23, 1923. It became a major hit in 1923 when it was recorded by Billy Jones, Billy Murray, Arthur Hall, Irving Kaufman, and others. It was recorded later by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, Spike Jones & His City Slickers, Kidsongs, and many more.
"I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" is an American popular song and jazz standard by Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics). The song was introduced by Adelaide Hall at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in January 1928 in Lew Leslie's Blackbird Revue, which opened on Broadway later that year as the highly successful Blackbirds of 1928, wherein it was performed by Adelaide Hall, Aida Ward, and Willard McLean.
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act – also known as the Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright terms in the United States in 1998. It is one of several acts extending the terms of copyright.
Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studio and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but it was the first to be distributed, because Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to produce one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons.
Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by the intellectual property right known as copyright, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. Works automatically enter the public domain when their copyright has expired. The United States Copyright Office is a federal agency tasked with maintaining copyright records.
"Dippermouth Blues" is a song first recorded by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band for Gennett Records in April 1923 and for Okeh Records in June of that same year. It is most often attributed to Joe "King" Oliver, though some have argued that Louis Armstrong was in fact the composer. This is partly because "Dippermouth", in the song's title, was a nickname of Armstrong's. Also, the phonograph recordings from 1922 gave credit to Armstrong and Oliver jointly. The song is a strong example of the influence of the blues on early jazz. There is a twelve-bar blues harmonic progression, with frequent bent notes and slides into notes.
When a work's copyright expires, it enters the public domain. The following is a list of creators whose works enter the public domain in 2024. Since laws vary globally, the copyright status of some works are not uniform.
Mickey's Mouse Trap is an upcoming Canadian independent comedy slasher film directed by Jamie Bailey from a screenplay written by Simon Phillips. It is a horror reimagining to Walt Disney's 1928 animated short film Steamboat Willie and stars Sophie McIntosh, Nick Biskupek, James Laurin, Mireille Gagné, Damir Kovic, Callum Sywyk, Allegra Nocita, Jesse Nasmith, Mackenzie Mills, Madeline Kelman, and Ben Harris, with Phillips as the titular character. It follows a group of friends trapped inside in a amusement arcade after it closes as they are terrorized by a masked killer in a Mickey Mouse costume.
The following is a list of prominent creative works starring Mickey Mouse announced after Steamboat Willie and The Gallopin' Gaucho, both released in 1928, entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2024. In January, multiple films and video games starring the character were announced immediately. This list only includes works that got prominent media attention.
Screamboat is an upcoming American independent comedy horror film directed by Steven LaMorte. It is a horror reimagining to Walt Disney's 1928 animated short film Steamboat Willie. LaMorte previously directed The Mean One (2022), a horror retelling of Dr. Seuss' 1957 children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.