Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse cartoons, and famous books by William Faulkner and Agatha Christie are some of the works|Joe Shlabotnik|CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Beginning in 2026, thousands of works from 1930 will officially enter the public domain, giving the public free access to copy, share, and reimagine them.
It includes beloved characters like Betty Boop, nine more early Mickey Mouse cartoons, and famous books by William Faulkner and Agatha Christie.
Readers can now reuse classics such as As I Lay Dying and The Murder at the Vicarage, as well as the first Nancy Drew novels and The Little Engine That Could.
Music lovers gain access to 1925 recordings and timeless songs like Georgia on My Mind and Dream a Little Dream of Me by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
Classic films like All Quiet on the Western Front will also become available.
Legal experts say the public domain helps creativity flourish by allowing artists to build on older stories.
However, only the original 1930 versions are free to use, but names and designs are trademark-protected when used on merchandise.
These public domain works will also feed into the AI training models, raising copyright issues.