These Classic Cartoons, Books and More Enter Public Domain in 2025
By Movieguide® Contributor
A new year brings lots of new things — including a new batch of entries into the public domain. 2025’s list includes everything from cartoon classic Popeye to works from Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie.
Public domain entries might sound confusing, but the definition is pretty simple.
According to the Stanford Libraries webpage, public domain “refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.”
This year, early versions of the beloved cartoon characters Popeye and Tintin have entered the public domain.
2025 has also seen dozens of books become property of the public domain, including William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury,” Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and Agatha Christie’s “Seven Dials Mystery.”
When it comes to movies, the public domain now owns THE KARNIVAL KID, which CBS wrote is “Mickey Mouse’s first talking appearance and the debut of his signature white gloves,” adding that 11 other Mickey shorts are also entering the public domain.
THE COCOANUTS, the first Marx Brothers movie, made the list, as well as Disney’s now-famous SKELETON DANCE cartoon.
READ MORE: STEAMBOAT WILLIE, PETER PAN, MORE ENTER PUBLIC DOMAIN
Some noteworthy songs are also now part of the public domain, too. “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Happy Days Are Here Again” can now all be used without getting anyone’s permission.
Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, the directors at the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, clarified that this doesn’t mean users have total free reign when it comes to these pieces of music.
“Note, however, that sound recording rights are more limited than composition rights — you can legally imitate a sound recording (should you be able to channel Tiny Tim’s signature falsetto) even if your imitation sounds exactly the same, you just cannot copy from the actual recording,” the pair wrote in an analysis of all titles entering the public domain this year.
READ MORE: PUBLIC DOMAIN OF DARKNESS OR LIGHT: WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH THESE MASTERWORKS?
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