Public Domain Day 2025

Happy Public Domain Day! Under US copyright law, books and musical compositions  published in 1929, films released in 1929, and sound recordings published in 1924 will enter the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025, when they can be freely performed, adapted, and otherwise used without a license. With the exception of sound recordings (which are governed by the Music Modernization Act), all works from the 1920s will be in the public domain in the US on January 1.

Several classic novels were published in 1929, including A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; All Quiet on the Western Front (the original German and the first English translation) by Erich Maria Remarque; Look Homeward, Angel, which was Thomas Wolfe’s first novel; and The Roman Hat Mystery, which was the first mystery by Ellery Queen (a pseudonym for the writing duo of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee). Edna Ferber’s 1929 novel Cimarron became the basis of a 1931 movie of the same name, which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. And finally, William Seabrook—an American journalist, world traveler, and occultist—first wrote about the concept of zombies in his book The Magic Island.

The last year of the decade also introduced several iconic characters to newspaper comics pages, including science fiction adventurer Buck Rogers, globe-trotting reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, and Popeye the Sailor.

In the US, the transition from silent movies to sound films was nearing completion. Popular 1929 movies included The Broadway Melody (the second recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture and the first sound film to win the award); On with the Show! (the first sound film in color); Cocoanuts (the first Marx Brothers film); and The Taming of the Shrew (the first sound film of a Shakespeare play), which starred Hollywood power couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Several legendary directors produced their first sound films that year, including Alfred Hitchcock (Blackmail), John Ford (The Black Watch), Cecil B. DeMille (Dynamite), and Victor Fleming (The Virginian, which was also actor Gary Cooper’s first sound film).

Musical compositions (sheet music) published in 1929 included “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin and  “Singin’ in the Rain” with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown. That same year composer Milton Ager and lyricist Jack Yellen created the song “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The piece was commissioned for the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows, but it gained even greater exposure as the theme song for New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful 1932 presidential campaign.

Unlike musical compositions, copyright for sound recordings falls under the Music Modernization Act. On January 1, 2025, recordings from 1924 will enter the public domain in the US, including “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin; “California, Here I Come” by Al Jolson with the Isham Jones Orchestra; “It Had to Be You” by the Isham Jones Orchestra; and “Santa Claus Blues” by Louis Armstrong. As with all public domain material, later versions may still fall under copyright protection.

We wish you a Happy New Year and a Happy Public Domain Day!

---

Thank you to Stephanie Michaels, Research and Catalog Services Librarian at the State Library of Ohio, for this week’s post!