This year Mickey Mouse entered the realm of public domain. Next year the parade continues as dozens more of the iconic mouse’s cartoons enter the public domain including his first “talkie”.
As we march further into the 21st century, more iconic works will become available for royalty free use.
The Navy may not divulge ancient papers, but one of the most iconic sailors in cartoon history bursts into the public domain on a sea of spinach. Popeye the sailor man is among the newest class of items entering the public domain after his debut in “Thimble Theater” in 1929. However, his voice and spinach are still under copyright for a few more years.
Other icons entering public domain in the United States is the cartoon Tintin minus the red hair, “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway (“The Sun Also Rises” is already in the public domain), “A Cup of Gold” by John Steinbeck, and “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf (“Mrs. Dalloway” is already in the public domain).
A number of early films will be entering the public domain in the next several years; but first Alfred Hitchcock’s British film “Blackmail”, John Ford’s first “talkie” “The Black Watch” with a young extra named John Wayne, and Cecile B DeMille’s first “talkie”, “Dynamite” will all enter the public domain. The Marx Brothers film “The Cocoanuts”, the Academy Award winning film “The Broadway Melody”, and a dozen early Mickey Mouse films including his first “talkie” “The Karnival Kid” also enter the public domain.
And from the world of music…the 1929 releases:
“What is This Thing Called Love” by Cole Porter
“Tiptoe Through the Tulips” by Cole Porter (no Tiny Tim didn’t originate the song)
“Ain’t Misbehavin’” by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks
the song “Singin’ in the Rain” from the 1929 film “The Hollywood Revue”
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” by Marian Anderson
“Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin