Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse works enter the public domain in 2026; Axios, December 26, 2025

 Josephine Walker, Axios; Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse works enter the public domain in 2026

"The public will be able to copy and reproduce thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 in the new year, including flirtatious flapper Betty Boop, nine additional Mickey Mouse cartoons and novels from Agatha Christie and William Faulkner.

Why it matters: Copyright violations can run up a hefty price tag — but when works enter the public domain, creatives can legally reimagine American classics.

What they're saying: "To tell new stories, we draw from older ones," Duke Law professors Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle wrote in an annual survey of works entering the public domain.

"One work of art inspires another — that is how the public domain feeds creativity."

The cultural works becoming public domain in 2026, from Betty Boop to Nancy Drew; NPR, December 26, 2025

 Rachel Treisman , NPR; The cultural works becoming public domain in 2026, from Betty Boop to Nancy Drew

"A new year means a new parade of classic characters and works entering the public domain.

Under U.S. law, the copyright on thousands of creations from 1930 — including films, books, musical compositions and more — will expire at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2026, meaning they will be free to use, share and adapt after nearly a century.

"I think this is my favorite crop of works yet, which is saying a lot," says Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke University Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, who has compiled an annual list of public domain entrants for over a decade."

Happy Public Domain Day! Popeye, ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ ‘The Sound and the Fury’ and Thousands of Other Captivating Creations Are Finally Free for Everyone to Use; Smithsonian Magazine, December 30, 2024

Ellen Wexler, Smithsonian Magazine ; Happy Public Domain Day! Popeye, ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ ‘The Sound and the Fury’ and Thousands of Other Captivating Creations Are Finally Free for Everyone to Use

"On January 1, 2025, Popeye—along with thousands of other copyrighted creations—will enter the public domain in the United States.

Every year, Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University School of Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, publishes an exhaustive analysis of some of the most important works entering the public domain. This year, the list includes copyrighted titles from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924.

Works enter the public domain when their copyrights expire, typically 95 years after publication. At that point, they become free for anyone to adapt or build upon without permission—with a few caveats. Copyrights to audio recordings, meanwhile, expire 100 years after they were first put to wax...

As Jenkins points out, many of the celebrated classics entering the public domain this year were themselves built atop other public domain works. Disney featured more than a dozen copyright-free songs in its 1929 Mickey cartoons. William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, which enters public domain on January 1, gets its name from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “[Life] is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Faulkner, Jenkins writes, is an “author of a timeless work that took from the public domain and now gives back to it.”"

Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76, Heads to Court Again; New York Times, 6/17/09

A.G. Sulzberger via New York Times; Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76, Heads to Court Again:

"The case is one of several in recent years exploring how much license the public has to draw on a classic work. In 2001 the estate of Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind,” sued unsuccessfully to prevent the release of “The Wind Done Gone,” which told the same story from the perspective of a slave. Last year J. K. Rowling, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, won a lawsuit over a guidebook to the series called The Harry Potter Lexicon.

“This case is really interesting because it really is where copyright runs into First Amendment rights, and it shows the jagged line between them,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School, who also was part of the legal team that defended the publisher in “The Wind Done Gone” lawsuit.

In examining questions of fair use of copyrighted work, courts have looked at whether a new work transforms the original in a significant way, Ms. Jenkins said, citing a Supreme Court ruling that a legitimate work must add “something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/books/17salinger.html?ref=arts