Popeye Belongs to All of Us
On January 1st each year, Public Domain Day, new materials fall out of copyright and become free to use and adapt for anyone, without needing to clear rights or pay royalties. These include audio recordings first copyrighted in 1924, and books, films, plays, musical compositions, artwork, and characters copyrighted in 1929. In recent years, these have included the original iterations of Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse, who have featured in a plethora of new marketable for-profit works; most notoriously low-budget horror films. This year, books like William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury have now become free to use, adapt, and sell, as well as Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Agatha Christie’s ninth novel, The Seven Dials Mystery … Continued