Popeye enters the US public domain

January 1 saw a new set of art, comics, literature, music, film, and more enter the US public domain.

From spinach-eating sailor Popeye to some artworks of Salvador Dali, artists will have access to thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 to copy, share, and build upon.

How does it work?
According to the US intellectual property law, every year on January 1, copyrighted works from 95 years ago enter the public domain. This year, apart from Popeye the sailorman, the young Belgian detective with a dog, Tintin is also free to use. Though some international copyrights might still apply, there is room for new interpretations of their adventures.

Several novels, including The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, are copyright-free now.

Movies like Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, and a dozen more of Disney’s Mickey Mouse animations also entered the public domain. Last year, the first-ever Mickey and Minnie Mouse created by Walt Disney became free to use.

Artworks of surrealist painter Salvador Dali: Illumined Pleasures, The Accommodations of Desire, and The Great Masturbator will be in the public domain.

Music masterpieces, including “What Is This Thing Called Love?” by Cole Porter, George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”, and Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero,” can now be remixed.

The public domain isn’t just a legal milestone; it’s a canvas for creators to honor, remix, or redefine the past into something entirely new.