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Why the earliest version of Mickey Mouse is entering the public domain

Jan 2, 2024
You can now use elements from Disney's 1928 short films “Steamboat Willie” and “Plane Crazy” in your own work.
Mickey Mouse debuted as Steamboat Willie in 1928.
Wikimedia Commons

"Great Gatsby" and other classics enter public domain Jan. 1

Dec 31, 2020
Copyright protections run out for books, songs and other works published in 1925. They will become free for anyone to use.
Want to put on a royalty-free production of "The Great Gatsby"? You can do that after midnight.
Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images

Satirist Tom Lehrer has put his songs into the public domain

Oct 21, 2020
Anyone's now free to record or perform the 92-year-old songwriter's parodies without owing royalties or consulting lawyers. And that's not a joke.
Tom Lehrer backstage at the Palace Theatre in London in 1959.
Evening Standard/Getty Images

Copyrighted works are entering the public domain for the first time in over 20 years

Dec 28, 2018
You’ll be able to freely use select works from Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley and Edith Wharton.
American poet Robert Frost, taken about 1963. His “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” will be in the public domain Jan. 1.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images