Get Ready for Public Domain Day 2026

My second favorite book-related holiday is coming up soon: January 1.

You might know it as New Year’s Day. But that just brings thoughts of hangovers and resolutions soon to be broken, right? (And of course, you know my most favorite book holiday is also upon us, this year’s Jolabokaflod on December 24, aka Christmas Eve.)

The real reason to celebrate January 1, for me, is the many works of literature and other arts that get added to the public domain each year. Here’s a short list of works that “will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon,” excerpted from the annual review on the Duke Law School website:

Books:

• William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
• Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (the full book version)
• Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage (the first novel featuring Miss Marple)
• Carolyn Keene, the first four Nancy Drew books, beginning with The Secret of the Old Clock
• Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could
• William H. Elson, Elson Basic Readers (the first appearances of Dick and Jane)
• Noël Coward, Private Lives
• T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday
• Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
• Edna Ferber, Cimarron
• Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
• W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

Be aware that in some cases, entry into the public domain applies to the specific edition of the book published in 1930. The Duke article notes how the first and last books on this excerpt take their titles from the texts of much older works in the public domain, Faulkner’s from Homer’s Odyssey and Maugham’s from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

I was amused to see the entry of Dick and Jane, as Yvonne used the general notion of those two characters in her first published book, Dickless Marketing. We’re confident her use is protected fair use.

As the Duke article states, even if the material you want to use is still under copyright, you may be able to use some of it under the “fair use” exception to copyright. Fair use law is, shall we say, complicated (see previous treatment, Should We Just Abolish Copyright?), but it’s a vital safety valve that promotes creative work.

Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has produced a fun comic book exploring many of the intricacies of fair use law, Bound by Law, with a free digital version here.

Characters, Comics, Cartoons

• Betty Boop from Fleischer Studios’ Dizzy Dishes and other cartoons
• Rover (later renamed Pluto) from Disney’s The Chain Gang (as an unnamed bloodhound) and The Picnic (as Rover)
• Blondie and Dagwood from the Blondie comic strips by Chic Young
• Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons, the initial week of Mickey Mouse comic strips, and ten new Silly Symphonies cartoons from Disney

Here, you need to be aware that trademark law may apply, even if copyright does not.

Films

Some of these are as interesting for who debuted, starred, or directed as the film itself.

• All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Lewis Milestone (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture)
• King of Jazz, directed by John Murray Anderson (Bing Crosby’s first feature-film appearance)
• Animal Crackers, directed by Victor Heerman (starring the Marx Brothers)
• Morocco, directed by Josef von Sternberg (starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou)
• Anna Christie, directed by Clarence Brown (Greta Garbo’s first talkie)
• The Big Trail, directed by Raoul Walsh (John Wayne’s first leading role)
• Murder!, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Free and Easy, directed by Edward Sedgwick (Buster Keaton’s first speaking role)

The Duke article cautions: “Please note that only the original films from 1930 are public domain; later versions might have newly added material that is still copyrighted.”

More

The article goes on to list works in categories Musical Compositions, Sound Recordings, and Art. Each of those has complexities explained there, which I won’t repeat here. If you’re looking to use material in those categories, please consult the full article.

I’ll close by sharing the video made by the Duke authors to summarize and celebrate this year’s entrants: