Public Domain Day 2025

While January 1 is the day we celebrate New Year’s Day, it’s also another important holiday: Public Domain Day. At the beginning of the calendar year, copyright expires for certain works, and they enter the public domain (PD). Works in the PD are not protected by copyright and are freely available for public use. 

This video highlights some of the most notable works to enter the PD in 2025.  Click the image below to watch video in new window.

For the year 2025, most works that were created in 1929 are now in the PD. 1929 is an exciting time for film as it was the beginning of the sound era. Silent movies were slowly being replaced with “talkies,” or films that used the actors’ voices rather than title cards. Classic films like The Cocoanuts, Blackmail, and Hallelujah are now freely available to watch. 

Last year, the Mickey Mouse classic, Steamboat Willie entered the PD. This year in animation, a dozen additional Mickey Mouse cartoons from the black and white era also entered the PD, most notably The Karnival Kid. Another cartoon classic from Walt Disney, The Skeleton Dance, is also a new work in the PD. 

Sound recordings, for complicated reasons, enter the public domain later than other media. Instead of works from 1929, many sound recordings from 1924 are now in the public domain. The most iconic work that is now in the PD is Rhapsody in Blue, but many classic blues songs like Krooked Blues and Deep blue sea blues are also available. 

For musical scores, the classics Singin’ in the Rain and Am I Blue? are available as well as the Ravel’s beautiful orchestral piece, Bolero. The videos that I linked are performances of those songs, which are not in the public domain. Only the scores themselves are free to the public.

Finally, for books, there is William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own,

There are a TONS more works available in the PD, and I encourage you to visit Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. They have a much more detailed list as to what is available. 

Remember that works in the PD are for everyone! They now belong to the public, so be sure to share and enjoy these works!