Public domain enjoyers can now partake in using Popeye and even more Mickey Mouse in 2025. The start of a new year brings with it new additions to the public domain, which allows the free use of popularย intellectual properties that previously were locked under copyright protections. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse joined the public domain in 2024, 95 years after the release of the animatedย Steamboat Willie short. 2025 brings even more Mickey Mouse to the public domain, and will be joined by the original Popeye.
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Works of art from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 are now available for free use in the United States. This list includes books, songs, shorts, and movies, and there are some big-name creators whose works are now up for grabs. For example, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Mystery are now in the public domain. As for Popeye, his public domain entry comes from E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip Gobs of Work. Mickey Mouse’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid loses its copyright protection, and Mickey’s signature white gloves are now available in the public domain along with 11 Mickey shorts.
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Other notable Disney works in the public domain in 2025 are Disney’s first “Silly Symphony” short, titled “The Skeleton Dance,” directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks.
The public domain works by keeping works under copyright protection for a set period of time. Once that time expires, anyone is free to use and build upon it in the public domain. These rules were written into the U.S. Constitution under theย intellectual property clause, “to promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Some of this can get a bit tricky, and Mickey Mouse is a prime example. His entry into the public domain in 2024 only falls under his Steamboat Willie appearance in 1928, minus the white gloves. They debuted in 1929, meaning that if any Mickey Mouse public domain works tried to use the white gloves prior to 2025, they could be hit with a copyright infringement.
2026 will see the public domain welcome Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse’s trusted dog Pluto and friend Clarabelle Cow, and Nancy Drew.
