Public Domain Day 2026 Brings Betty Boop, Nancy Drew and 'I Got Rhythm' Into the Commons (duke.edu)
- Reference: 0180497219
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/01/1712212/public-domain-day-2026-brings-betty-boop-nancy-drew-and-i-got-rhythm-into-the-commons
- Source link: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/
The original iteration of Disney's Pluto -- then named Rover -- enters as well. Nine additional Mickey Mouse cartoons and ten Silly Symphonies from 1930 are now available for reuse. Films entering the public domain include the Academy Award-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, and John Wayne's first leading role in The Big Trail. Musical compositions going public include George and Ira Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind," and "Dream a Little Dream of Me."
Sound recordings from 1925 now available include Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong's "The St. Louis Blues" and Marian Anderson's "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." Piet Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow rounds out the artistic entries.
[1] https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/
Copyright should be 10 years, extendable to 50 (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do we have super long copyrights? Disney. They got greedy and lobbied and beat the small guys up, convincing the US congress to help the corps.
Who benefits from it? Corporations, not the authors. In fact often the authors get screwed by long copyrights. How? If you sold your copyright to a corporation then the law changed, the corp got the benefit without paying your more money. Few creators manage to maintain control over their copyrights for more than a decade. Many lose it immediately.
How should we let them extend a copyright and why should it extendable?
I) If you make it extendable you can make extendable only if they create a sequel.
II) This encourages the original author to create more
III) Lets them benefit from the original work which often gets renewed interest when a sequel happens.
IV) It allows for lesser works to not be extended, letting them get more exposure after copyright fails.
V) It allows for more unique cases like "Its a wonderful life" that only becomes famous BECAUSE it was not copyrighted.
Why is ten years extendable to 50 enough?
Most copyrightable works fall into 3 categories:
1) Failures that never make money. Obviously, these do not need 10 years, let alone 50 years of protection.
2) Reasonable Successes. These make money and almost all of it in the first two years. Yes, you get a long tail that slowly tapers off, but it is almost all gone in 10 years. If it is worth it, you can do the extra work, create a sequel, and get that full long tail of 50 years.
3) Genius works. Classics. This will be making money 200 years after the author is dead. Davinci, Monet, Shakespeare. Miracle on 34th street. Bach. This work is great but should already set the creator up for life in the first 50 years with both money and fame.
But there are lots of reasons not to extend the money/rights further, including:
a) The creator should not need more if they are getting properly compensated for the work.
b) Sometimes people steal or otherwise unethically obtain the copyright and we do NOT need to benefit them or encourage this behavior
c) We probably could not pay the real author enough money for it's true worth,
d) we want the poor people to be able to enjoy these truly great masterpieces
e) It makes fair use a lot easier if copyright goes away, avoiding stupid and un-necessary lawsuits about what is and is not fair use.
f) It puts a bunch of relatively recent works available for the poor without having them all be culturally difficult to understand.
Re: (Score:1)
Why should it be extendable to 50 years? In most professions you need to work everyday if you want to have money everyday. This even includes employed creative workers, who need to work every day and transfer the copyright to their employer. Why should the person holding the copyright have the money printer, while other people need to work for their money?
To enable models that allow to first work and then make money from licensing the finished work (so not the employee model), one could say copyright should
Re: (Score:2)
> Why do we have super long copyrights? Disney. ....
>
> V) It allows for more unique cases like "Its a wonderful life" that only becomes famous BECAUSE it was not copyrighted.
This is wrong. It's A Wonderful Life was copyrighted. The copyright wasn't renewed in 1974 by what is called a "clerical error" (probably means somebody forgot to do the paperwork) by the company that bought the rights to the film some time after it was released. Stuff like this played a role in why the somewhat infamous Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act had a provision to automatically renew copyrights for free since various things had entered the public domain because somebody forgot to do some paper
Re: Copyright should be 10 years, extendable to 50 (Score:2)
The automatic renewal of copyright registrations was done in 1992, well before the 1998 Sonny Bono extensions of term. That 1992 act pertained only to registrations between 1964 and 1977- all others were either already renewed, already non-renewed, or not subject to a renewal requirement.
2026 public domain day works (Score:3)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Lots of good books added to the public domain.
Most of the main Disney character early short films are in the public domain.
You cannot use trademarks to extend the copyright of a work in the public domain.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_in_public_domain
Why Jan 1st? (Score:2)
Aren't copyright terms whole years? Why does it end on 1.1.?
Re: (Score:2)
The text of [1]Title 17, United States Code, section 305 [cornell.edu]:
> All terms of copyright provided by sections 302 through 304 run to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.
From House Report 94-1476, linked from "Notes" on the same page:
> Under section 305, which has its counterpart in the laws of most foreign countries, the term of copyright protection for a work extends through December 31 of the year in which the term would otherwise have expired. This will make the duration of copyright much
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/305
The original Betty Boop, not the one you think .. (Score:2)
The slightly dog-faced one with floppy dog ears from the original movie Dizzy Dishes, not the "cute kawaii-looking" Jazz Age flapper one most people would recognize. Also, the name "Betty Boop" is still under copyright.
Trademark cannot extend a copyright (Score:3)
> The slightly dog-faced one with floppy dog ears from the original movie Dizzy Dishes
Lean into that. Make an episode where poodle!Betty tries to fit into a human-dominated society but fails to pass as human, with people calling her the B word, and have it end on a cliffhanger as she is prepared for plastic surgery.
> Also, the name "Betty Boop" is still under copyright.
Names of characters used in more than one work or in merchandise are generally subject to trademark, not copyright. The US Supreme Court has refused to enforce the Lanham Act, which relates to trademarks and passing off, in such a way that it would extend the effective term of an
Every day (Score:3)
It's public domain day every day on the high seas ... arrrrr
Public Domain is complicated (Score:3)
One twist is trademarks on characters, etc. Even if the copyright has expired, trademarks can limit how a character or other trademark may be used. It’s also possible a movie enters the public domain but the music is still copyrighted; or if it is a derivative work that is still copyrighted, the ability to use it limited. See [1]It’s a Wonderful Life [uconn.edu]
[1] https://library.law.uconn.edu/2022/12/08/its-a-wonderful-life-how-a-copyright-glitch-created-a-christmas-cult-classic/
Already available for download (Score:2)
Some of the books can be downloaded from [1]here [standardebooks.org].
[1] https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026
Public domain means nothing (Score:3)
Sadly, simply placing a work into the "public domain" means nothing these days.
I regularly see YouTube creators who are hit with copyright claims/strikes for using public domain footage from the likes of NASA -- because broadcasters have used that same footage in their own production and YT's content-ID system automatically issues a claim/strike when anyone else uses the same footage.
This wouldn't be a problem if YouTube's appeal process worked -- but it doesn't, it's so badly broken that even big creators like Scott Manley are being hit and having the revenues stolen from their efforts simply because a broadcaster like Channel 4 in the UK has claimed his video for using the very same PD NASA footage that they used in one of their videos.
Copyright is so easy to abuse and misuse that is now almost laughable.
This is not what copyright should be (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright is a PRIVILEGE that we, the people, give to CREATORS to encourage CREATION.
A FIVE YEAR copyright term is reasonable to encourage a creator to create without preventing other creators from creating using their work.
95 YEARS IS AN ABOMINATION that discourages creation, the REASON we give people the copyright privilege.
5 Years Is Ridiculous! (Score:2, Flamebait)
A 5 year copyright is ridiculous. This is the sort of idea that comes from leaches that have never created anything in their life.
Why does your "creation" involve my work at all? Ever? Do your own "creation"!
Now if you wanted to argue for 50 year copyrights, I'd be open to discussion. But, 5 years? Ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
If you look at the copyright industry, which includes movies, music, books, and more, one key question is how far in the future they look in projecting revenue when deciding whether to fund a project. I would think given that, 10 years would be the minimum number to not have an obvious economic impact. 20 or 25 might also be reasonable. But that's just looking at it from economics.
There's also a moral aspect. Should a creator have creative control over what they create? How long should that last? That
Re: (Score:2)
> If you look at the copyright industry, which includes movies, music, books, and more, one key question is how far in the future they look in projecting revenue when deciding whether to fund a project. I would think given that, 10 years would be the minimum number to not have an obvious economic impact.
Why would I care about obvious economic impact? If you made it 5 years these companies would project out for 5 years. They may stop spending hundreds of millions on shows and movies while people struggle to make ends meet. They may become more efficient and not hire people to link chain mail for 2 years [1]https://www.facebook.com/watch... [facebook.com] , something that only the most OCD of film goers would even notice. Maybe they would be forced to share graphics resources.
I think its actually the reverse is in effect. The
[1] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1284541722868493
Re: (Score:1)
You're trolling, right? Right?!
Re:This is not what copyright should be (Score:4, Informative)
> Copyright is a PRIVILEGE that we, the people, give to CREATORS to encourage CREATION.
copyright has nothing to do with creation. it's just about money and rents. you can infringe any copyright you like and be as creative as you wish with it as long you do it underground, or privately, or anonymously. nobody will give a damn, and it is still creation in its purest form. however, try to make money with it or claim ownership and the sharks will be all over you. see? art, money, entirely different matters.
copyright is just property law that distorts the concept of property and exploits "art" to protect rents, mostly those of big companies. and a convenient instrument for censorship.
Value (Score:2)
> copyright has nothing to do with creation. it's just about money and rents. you can infringe any copyright you like and be as creative as you wish with it as long you do it underground, or privately, or anonymously. nobody will give a damn, and it is still creation in its purest form.
So your argument is that the art that artists create has no inherent value, and others can reproduce it and profit off of it as much as they want and the artist who created it should get nothing?
I agree with the general concept that copyright law and enforcement is screwed up and should be reformed, but copyright itself serves an important purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
> So your argument is that the art that artists create has no inherent value,
oh, no. it's money that hasn't any inherent value. art can have value. copyright is all about protecting money extraction from it.
> and others can reproduce it and profit off of it as much as they want
i said exactly the opposite (re profit). are you being disingenuous?
> and the artist who created it should get nothing?
ok, yes, you may be being disingenuous.
Re: (Score:2)
> oh, no. it's money that hasn't any inherent value. art can have value
Ah, you're right, I completely misunderstood your argument. You don't understand the most basic of economic principles. Got it.
Re: (Score:2)
> Copyright was originally 14 years. And you still have the problem that creative people (say, Dolly Parton) rely on royalties from their creative years to pay for their retirement. Maybe you say, screw those people, they don't reserve to have royalties in their old age. That's an opinion you can have, but it would also mean that fewer talented people would invest in artistic careers and there would be less good art in the world.
Why are they special and don't have to save for retirement like 99.99% of the rest of the world, the world does not owe them or anybody else a conformable retirement.
> Companies would be unwilling to restore physical media if it could be easily pirated. Like, do you have any idea what it cost to do the restoration of Star Trek: TNG?
If there was no copyright companies would not have to do this at all I could go to a web site and download any show that has aired, because someone would have made a copy. (like we can now but illegally). I could put it on a flash drive for less than the cost of a DVD. We have limited access to old shows because copyright allows dumb things lik