Even if you’re not one for getting dressed up and going out to ring in the new year, there’s still something to celebrate on Jan. 1: a new batch of copyrighted works entering the public domain. In 2025, the rights to characters, books, plays, movies, drawings, paintings, and photography from 1929, as well as sound recordings from 1924 will expire, meaning that the public (that’s us) can legally copy, share, and build upon them without permission or paying a fee, according to the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University. Here are some of the highlights.Notable characters entering the public domain in 2025Popeye: E.C. Segar’s strapping sailor man first appeared in “Gobs of Work” in his Thimble Theatre comic stripTintin: The young investigative reporter made his debut in “Les Aventures de Tintin” by Belgian cartoonist Hergé in the magazine Le Petit Vingtième Notable books and plays
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