This hotel not only has running water. It has running guests!
January 1, 2025 5:50 AM Subscribe
Happy Public Domain Day 2025! On this day a bunch of books, plays, movies, and more exit copyright and enter the public domain. Those have 1929 publication dates, plus audio recordings from 1924.
Examples, from Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
Books and plays:
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)[4]
John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold (Steinbeck's first novel)
Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
Patrick Hamilton, Rope
Arthur Wesley Wheen, the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Agatha Christie, Seven Dials Mystery
Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That
E. B. White and James Thurber, Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (only the original German version, Briefe an einen jungen Dichter)
Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Morals
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee), The Roman Hat Mystery
Movies:
A dozen more Mickey Mouse animations (including Mickey’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid)
The Cocoanuts, directed by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley (the first Marx Brothers feature film)
The Broadway Melody, directed by Harry Beaumont (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, directed by Charles Reisner (featuring the song “Singin’ in the Rain”)
The Skeleton Dance, directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks (the first Silly Symphony short from Disney)
Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s first sound film)
Hallelujah, directed by King Vidor (one of the first film from a major studio with an all African-American cast)
The Wild Party, directed by Dorothy Arzner (Clara Bow’s first “talkie”)
Welcome Danger, directed by Clyde Bruckman and Malcolm St. Clair (the first full-sound comedy starring Harold Lloyd)
On With the Show, directed by Alan Crosland (the first all-talking, all-color, feature-length film)
Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), directed by G.W. Pabst
Show Boat, directed by Harry A. Pollard (adaptation of the novel and musical)
The Black Watch, directed by John Ford (Ford’s first sound film)
Spite Marriage, directed by Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton (Keaton’s final silent feature)
Say It with Songs, directed by Lloyd Bacon (follow-up to The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool)
Dynamite, directed by Cecil B. DeMille (DeMille's first sound film)
Gold Diggers of Broadway, directed Roy Del Ruth
Sound recordings:
"My Way's Cloudy," recorded by Marian Anderson
"Rhapsody in Blue," recorded by George Gershwin
"Shreveport Stomp," recorded by Jelly Roll Morton
"Lazy," recorded by The Georgians
"Krooked Blues," recorded by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band featuring Louis Armstrong
"Deep Blue Sea Blues," recorded by Clara Smith
"The Gouge of Armour Avenue," recorded by Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra featuring Big Charlie Green
"Mama’s Gone, Good Bye," recorded by Ray Miller and his Orchestra
"It Had To Be You," recorded by the Isham Jones Orchestra and by Marion Harris
"California Here I Come," recorded by Al Jolson
(Previously.)
Examples, from Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain:
Books and plays:
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)[4]
John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold (Steinbeck's first novel)
Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
Patrick Hamilton, Rope
Arthur Wesley Wheen, the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Agatha Christie, Seven Dials Mystery
Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That
E. B. White and James Thurber, Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (only the original German version, Briefe an einen jungen Dichter)
Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Morals
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee), The Roman Hat Mystery
Movies:
A dozen more Mickey Mouse animations (including Mickey’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid)
The Cocoanuts, directed by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley (the first Marx Brothers feature film)
The Broadway Melody, directed by Harry Beaumont (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, directed by Charles Reisner (featuring the song “Singin’ in the Rain”)
The Skeleton Dance, directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks (the first Silly Symphony short from Disney)
Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock’s first sound film)
Hallelujah, directed by King Vidor (one of the first film from a major studio with an all African-American cast)
The Wild Party, directed by Dorothy Arzner (Clara Bow’s first “talkie”)
Welcome Danger, directed by Clyde Bruckman and Malcolm St. Clair (the first full-sound comedy starring Harold Lloyd)
On With the Show, directed by Alan Crosland (the first all-talking, all-color, feature-length film)
Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), directed by G.W. Pabst
Show Boat, directed by Harry A. Pollard (adaptation of the novel and musical)
The Black Watch, directed by John Ford (Ford’s first sound film)
Spite Marriage, directed by Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton (Keaton’s final silent feature)
Say It with Songs, directed by Lloyd Bacon (follow-up to The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool)
Dynamite, directed by Cecil B. DeMille (DeMille's first sound film)
Gold Diggers of Broadway, directed Roy Del Ruth
Sound recordings:
"My Way's Cloudy," recorded by Marian Anderson
"Rhapsody in Blue," recorded by George Gershwin
"Shreveport Stomp," recorded by Jelly Roll Morton
"Lazy," recorded by The Georgians
"Krooked Blues," recorded by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band featuring Louis Armstrong
"Deep Blue Sea Blues," recorded by Clara Smith
"The Gouge of Armour Avenue," recorded by Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra featuring Big Charlie Green
"Mama’s Gone, Good Bye," recorded by Ray Miller and his Orchestra
"It Had To Be You," recorded by the Isham Jones Orchestra and by Marion Harris
"California Here I Come," recorded by Al Jolson
(Previously.)
Finally, A Room of One's Own of one's own.
posted by mittens at 6:04 AM on January 1 [11 favorites]
posted by mittens at 6:04 AM on January 1 [11 favorites]
I expect the Faulkner and Hemingway to appear on Standard Ebooks later today.
posted by Lemkin at 6:10 AM on January 1 [3 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 6:10 AM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Ah, yes. They were on The Sun Also Rises like white on rice.
Hey, Scribner! I got your copyright right here.
posted by Lemkin at 6:42 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Hey, Scribner! I got your copyright right here.
posted by Lemkin at 6:42 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Valid only in the US, as I understand it. The UK extends seventy years from the death of the author. Accordingly, Agatha Christie and Richard Hughes and Robert Graves at least have a ways to go.
Not that the US has traditionally been very respectful towards Britishers' copyright. (While they were living, non-US residents Christie and Rafael Sabatini had serious problems with some outrageous grasping by the American Internal Revenue Service. Note the irony in both "internal" and "service".)
Of course, lawyers and politicians like to confuse issues, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
posted by BWA at 6:57 AM on January 1 [4 favorites]
Not that the US has traditionally been very respectful towards Britishers' copyright. (While they were living, non-US residents Christie and Rafael Sabatini had serious problems with some outrageous grasping by the American Internal Revenue Service. Note the irony in both "internal" and "service".)
Of course, lawyers and politicians like to confuse issues, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
posted by BWA at 6:57 AM on January 1 [4 favorites]
Not that the US has traditionally been very respectful towards Britishers' copyright.
When Dickens came to America, we loved the guy… until he brought up us not paying for his work.
posted by Lemkin at 7:24 AM on January 1 [3 favorites]
When Dickens came to America, we loved the guy… until he brought up us not paying for his work.
posted by Lemkin at 7:24 AM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Nice to see Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett in there.
posted by box at 7:33 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
posted by box at 7:33 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
The good volunteers at Standard Ebooks were ready to go, publishing twenty books that entered the U.S. public domain.
The Public Domain Review has a good round-up as well, including the three relevant, different copyright systems.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:35 AM on January 1 [7 favorites]
The Public Domain Review has a good round-up as well, including the three relevant, different copyright systems.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:35 AM on January 1 [7 favorites]
Mod note: [#HappyNewYear! We've added this to the New Year's roundup on the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 8:55 AM on January 1 [6 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 8:55 AM on January 1 [6 favorites]
Yay!
See also: Happy Public Domain Day 2025 from publicdomainreview.org, which mentions work by Aleister Crowley, Jean Cocteau, Sinclair Lewis, Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Robert Capa, and Colette, among many others.
posted by gwint at 9:04 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
See also: Happy Public Domain Day 2025 from publicdomainreview.org, which mentions work by Aleister Crowley, Jean Cocteau, Sinclair Lewis, Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Robert Capa, and Colette, among many others.
posted by gwint at 9:04 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]
mixedmetaphors, jinx! (insert joke about buying you a coke if trademarks ever expired)
posted by gwint at 9:06 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 9:06 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Can't wait for someone to publish A Farewell to Arms and Zombies.
The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills and raises as the undead. It raises the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill and raise you too but there will be no special hurry. So lock and load!posted by lock robster at 12:00 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]
This hotel not only has running water. It has running guests!Could someone take pity on the insufficiently cultured and explain the title to us? (Presumably it originated in, or is explained by, one of the newly public-domain works, but, again, insufficiently cultured.)
posted by It is regrettable that at 12:31 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
It is regrettable that, it is a line from the delirious Marx Brothers movie The Cocoanuts, one which just entered public domain.
posted by doctornemo at 12:35 PM on January 1 [7 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 12:35 PM on January 1 [7 favorites]
Can't wait for someone to publish A Farewell to Arms and Zombies.
Now I can sell my Quentin/Caddy Compson slashfic in the Kindle store instead of giving it away on Archive of Our Own.
posted by Lemkin at 3:06 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Now I can sell my Quentin/Caddy Compson slashfic in the Kindle store instead of giving it away on Archive of Our Own.
posted by Lemkin at 3:06 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]
Shreveport Stomp is a delightful romp from the very, very beginnings of jazz. And for the record, my History of Jazz professor, a working trumpeter named Bobby Bradford, assures us that the nickname "Jelly Roll" is absolutely a filthy reference.
posted by wnissen at 12:46 PM on January 2
posted by wnissen at 12:46 PM on January 2
« Older 2025 is remarkable | Earthships Newer »
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:02 AM on January 1 [4 favorites]