Tintin, Popeye Enter Public Domain as 1929 Works Released (duke.edu)
- Reference: 0175813303
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/01/01/1711230/tintin-popeye-enter-public-domain-as-1929-works-released
- Source link: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/
Popeye debuted in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip, while Tintin first appeared in Georges Remi's "Les Aventures de Tintin." These original character versions can now be freely used without permission or fees. Literary classics joining the public domain include 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."
Musical compositions entering the public domain include George Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'." The original 1929 recordings remain protected until 2030 under separate copyright rules.
Notable films becoming public domain include the Marx Brothers' first feature "The Cocoanuts," Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film "Blackmail," and several Mickey Mouse animations where the character debuts his white gloves and speaks his first words. Sound recordings from 1924, including performances by Marian Anderson and George Gershwin, also entered the public domain under the Music Modernization Act's 100-year term for historical recordings.
[1] https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/
trivia (Score:3)
The name under which Tintin books were released, "Herge," is just the author's initials, pronounced in French.
Re:trivia (Score:4, Informative)
In Belgium (origin of Tintin) and in the European Union, copyright on Tintin will last until 2053: the year of death of Hergé (1983) plus 70 years.
Re: (Score:2)
In reverse: Rémi Georges.
Put all this together (Score:2)
And it could ber a very interesting fan fiction which can't be DMCA'd down.
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Yes, Rule 34 will be on full display.
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They're gonna make a bad Popeye horror film, and maybe bring in Winnie the Pooh cuz why not?
Popeye (Score:1, Troll)
Does anyone under 60 know or care who Popeye is?
Re: (Score:3)
Popeye was phased out of afternoon cartoons in my youth, so not many do know. Many were also astonishingly racist, sexist, and body-shaming by today's "enlightened" standards, even if they were entertaining as heck at the time.
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All that I noticed about the old Popeye was how violent it was. He solved every problem by fighting. The opening scene showed him walking down the street just randomly destroying stuff with his fists
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Yes, I do. Why? Cos I eats my spinach.
Re:Popeye (Score:4, Insightful)
There was that PG-rated 1980 Popeye film which would put the age of knowing who Popeye is at least somewhere close to 60 years. I recall seeing the film many years after 1980 on satellite TV so there's potential for a younger audience.
Wikipedia tells me there was a Popeye animated series in the 1980s that I vaguely remember, again this was likely also in reruns when I saw it. Then is a TV series from 2001 to 2003 that showed the old black and white animations to a new audience, with some kind of commentary between segments and with a bit of digital editing to make up for lost footage, damaged film, and (if I'm reading that right) edit some images that would not be politically correct today.
There was apparently a Popeye web series in 2018. This was apparently geared to a young audience as Bluto would be trying to steal Popeye's spinach than trying to steal his girlfriend, the violence was toned down (again, if I'm reading that right), and other changes to reach "modern audiences".
It seems to me that the point of copyrights to expire is so that old creative works that influenced popular culture don't fall into some "memory hole". We want to be able to preserve this for the future, and allow derivations, re-showings, and so on, without being tied up in copyright hell. This would be especially relevant with 100 years passing, there could be disputes on who owns the copyrights any more as people have died off, intellectual property bought and sold, and all kinds of other lines that could be blurred in time.
Re: Popeye (Score:2)
42 and yes. Anyone younger?
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40 and I definitely remember Popeye.
it's too little too late, our cultural paywall (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, the corruption pf copyright laws has resulted in the commercialization of our own culture, we must now pay the upper class for access to it, this is what classism looks like, remember, slaves own nothing.
Re:it's too little too late, our cultural paywall (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately it's just one tiny symptom of end-stage capitalism.
Find a way to force wealth to be recycled, and put a cap on individual wealth, or wealth will continue to concentrate until there are masters, overseers, slaves, and the entirely unwanted. And as robotics improve, those middle two classes will join the last one.
Re:it's too little too late, our cultural paywall (Score:4, Funny)
Ahh. Downvoted by a temporarily embarrassed billionaire.
Re:it's too little too late, our cultural paywall (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think its a tiny part, its a major part you can own physical assets as much as you want but if you can stop people using ideas that is real control. Ideas don't need maintenance, you buy up an idea and just collect money for doing nothing. The reason we are still not living in caves and throwing sticks at prey is because of sharing of knowledge and the rich have managed convince people that somehow it is their right to own that knowledge.
Re:it's too little too late, our cultural paywall (Score:5, Funny)
> remember, slaves own nothing.
And pirates pay nothing, so the value proposition is spot on. Arrr.
95 years. That is an outrage. (Score:5, Insightful)
5 years is a reasonable term for the copyright privilege WE give to CREATORS.
95 years of big publishers cashing in - and stifling creativity - is an international DISGRACE.
Re: (Score:2)
I would argue that copyright should belong to the creator only and be limited to their lifetime
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> I would argue that copyright should belong to the creator only and be limited to their lifetime
That could be complicated if a corporation owns the copyright.
And what if the creator dies unexpectedly at a young age? Would you have the creator's estate forfeit any benefit? The creator might have a young family with children that depends on the income.
Sounds like you're saying someone can't sell their rights to a creation. Maybe that's worth a discussion, but it would certainly change the status quo.
Re: 95 years. That is an outrage. (Score:2)
"And what if the creator dies unexpectedly at a young age?"
Copyright is to encourage creation by the creator.
*That* is why we the people *give it* to creators.
To prevent copies long enough to encourage people to make stuff.
Not as a guaranteed income source for x years.
95 years works against creativity - AGAINST THE WHOLE FUCKING PURPOSE OF COPYRIGHT.
Re: (Score:2)
Define "guaranteed income" and explain how copyright enables it.
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Copyright is to discourage theft of intellectual property.
In many cases, the creator created the work to benefit their partner and children. The revenue from the work is effectively deferred income. Why wouldn’t that be part of their estate?
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> Copyright is to discourage theft of intellectual property.
False. Copyright exists explicitly "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
> In many cases, the creator created the work to benefit their partner and children
So what?
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> I would argue that copyright should belong to the creator only and be limited to their lifetime
That's easy enough for a work created by a single person but what of some creative work from a large corporation? Anything from Marvel, Disney, or whatever is the result of potentially thousands of people making some creative input.
I could argue that 100 years is a meaningful limit on copyright as that's a time period that few would be able to argue there's some surviving contributor that is due something from any performance, reproduction, etc. of a given work.
Another argument is to keep it much shorter,
Re:95 years. That is an outrage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Authors invest their time and skill into creating new works, corporations invest labour and money. The same goes for both of them: limits on copyright should be long enough for them to make it worth their while, but short enough to encourage them to create additional works in order to keep earning an income.
A more reasonable proposal was to limit copyright to 20 years, and allow a one-time renewal for another 20 years, for a very hefty fee. So if your work turns out to remain rather profitable, paying the fee will be worth your while. But you can't sit on "IP" just to block others from copying or remixing it, not for free. And with that said, I think moral rights should expire after 20 years as well, with no option for renewal.
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Why? Should someone be able to paid for their entire lifetime of a single piece of work? If you are a plumber do you get paid every time someone uses a tap that you installed? No, you should get paid a reasonable amount of money for the work that you did, there is no logical reason it should be for the rest of your life. There should be a period in which you get paid since you are not paid upfront but it should be limited, all business venture have an element of risk, so yes sometimes you won't make money,
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“ Krypto is drawn as a medium-sized, short-haired white dog of generic pedigree” -Wikipedia
Here is Gunn’s insta describing how Krypton came to be in the movie.
[1]https://www.instagram.com/jame... [instagram.com]
TLDR: You’re wrong.
[1] https://www.instagram.com/jamesgunn/p/DBJpSmavhtu/?hl=en&img_index=1
Public domain only in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
In the rest of the world, works will be protected by the Berne convention for the life of the author, with a minimum 50 years extension, most often 70 years.
Most Popeye works were public domain by the 1990s (Score:4, Interesting)
Most Popeye works had their copyrights expire in the 1990s. I have a pile of $5 SLP VHS tapes with hours and hours of public domain Popeye episodes we bought in the 1990s.
Re:Most Popeye works were public domain by the 199 (Score:4, Interesting)
I think a lot of those cheap videos came about because they weren't properly copyrighted back in the day. But the intro music is probably missing because that's under a different sort of copyright.
Guess the movie companies (Score:2)
couldnt stop the push into the public domain because they didnt it their spinnach - wrong kind of greens
Meanwhile, those of us who don't want to wait (Score:4, Interesting)
a century to enjoy more contemporary works simply disregard the corrupt copyright laws.
Re: Meanwhile, those of us who don't want to wait (Score:1)
Immoral copyright terms, doing the opposite of their intended job, make piracy moral.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, those of us who don't want to wait ... borrow it from the library.
The Legend of Bolero (Score:2)
I heard that they were going to use Bolero as the theme song for the original NES Zelda game until they found out that it was still under copyright. Fortunately they came up with something iconic instead.
Tintin is still under copyright (Score:3)
I was just told because of the Berne convention, non-American authors are protected until the year of their death plus 50 years. In the EU, it is 70.
Standard Ebooks already has a number of these. (Score:3)
They've been carefully formatted, and they can be found [1]here [standardebooks.org].
[1] https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2025
Mille Milliard de Mille Sabords ! (Score:5, Funny)
Can't be.
Re: Mille Milliard de Mille Sabords ! (Score:2)
Where are my mod points when I need them?!