🌅 What Entered the Public Domain in 2026

SOURCE

Center for the Study of the Public Domain

WHAT TO KNOW

• Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons entered the public domain on January 1, two years after the original version of the iconic mouse entered the domain upon the expiration of the copyright for the 1928 animated short Steamboat Willie. The new Mickey cartoons will be joined by thousands of other copyrighted works entering the domain this year, including the original version of Betty Boop, the first four Nancy Drew novels, films featuring Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne, and the original compositions of Georgia on My Mind and Dream a Little Dream of Me.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Copyright law protects creative works like books, movies, images, and musical compositions from being copied and used without the true owner’s permission for 95 years; sound recordings—i.e., songs—get 100 years of protection. When a copyright expires and enters the public domain, other people are free to copy and reproduce the work without the owner’s permission (this is how the horror parody film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was made). The idea being that allowing the public to use the work after a specified period of time fuels innovation and expansion, and adds to humanity’s shared body of culture and knowledge.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Experts expect the copyright system and intellectual property law to collide head-on with generative AI in the near future. However, copyright protection requires works to be “original and creative,” which doesn’t suit AI-generated works, which are created by mimicking other creative works via a prompt. Other experts say AI forces us to reexamine our conception of art and the creative process to reflect on the subjective experience and disposition behind the work, not just the patterns that can be algorithmically uncovered within it.