Happy New Year! January 1, 2021 marks the date that items published in the year 1925 enter the public domain in the United States. January 1st of any given year is the date that items typically fall into the public domain. This happens 70 years after the death of the author, 95 years from the date of publication, or 120 years from the date of creation – whichever comes first (see this Cornell chart for more details).
From the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power…to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” [emphasis mine]
In celebration of the release of copyrighted works into the public domain, I wanted to share a not-at-all-comprehensive list of items that will be in the public domain as of January 1st. If you are a faculty member, take a look at the list and see if any of this content would be useful in the courses you teach. Public domain means access to content should be free or relatively cheap (great news for your students), and fair game for remixing and reusing (great news for you).
Film
- Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ: Dir. Fred Niblo
- The Big Parade: Dir. King Vidor
- Der Farmer aus Texas: Dir. Joe May
- The Freshman: Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor
- Go West: Dir. Buster Keaton
- The Gold Rush: Dir. Charlie Chaplin
- His People: Dir. Edward Sloman
- Lady Windermere’s Fan: Dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- Little Annie Rooney: Dir. William Beaudine
- The Lost World: Dir. Harry Hoyt
- Lovers in Quarantine: Dir. Frank Tuttle
- The Merry Widow: Dir. Erich von Stroheim
- Pretty Ladies: Dir. Monta Bell
- Stella Dallas: Dir. Henry King
- The Unholy Three: Dir. Tod Browning
Music – only the musical composition and not specific recordings
- “Always“ by Irving Berlin
- “Anybody Here Want to Try my Cabbage” by Thomas “Fats” Waller with Andy Razaf
- “Black Bottom Stomp” by Jelly Roll Morton
- “Gin House Blues” by Fletcher Henderson with lyrics by Henry Troy
- “Goodbye Daddy Blues” and “Louisiana Hoo Doo Blues” by Ma Rainey
- “Here in My Arms” by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart
- “He’s Gone Blues”, “Dixie Flyer Blues”, and “Telephone Blues” by Bessie Smith
- “I’m in Love Again” by Cole Porter
- “Looking for a Boy” and “That Certain Feeling” by George & Ira Gershwin
- “Manhattan“ by Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
- “Sweet Georgia Brown” by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, lyrics by Kenneth Casey
- “Ukulele Lady” by Gus Kahn & Richard Whiting
- “When the Black Man Has a Nation of His Own” and “Bright Star of Hope” by W.C. Handy with J.M. Miller
- “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” by Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson
Literature
- Anderson, Sherwood: Dark Laughter
- Bulgakov, Mikhail: Роковые яйца (The Fatal Eggs)
- Cather, Willa: The Professor’s House
- Christie, Agatha: The Secret of Chimneys
- Dos Passos, John: Manhattan Transfer
- Dreiser, Theodore: An American Tragedy
- Eliot, T.S.: The Hollow Men (poem)
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
- Ford, Ford Madox: No More Parades
- Hemingway, Ernest: In Our Time
- Huxley, Aldous: Those Barren Leaves
- Kafka, Franz: The Trial (in German)
- Lewis, Sinclair: Arrowsmith
- Lippmann, Walter: The Phantom Public
- Locke, Alain: The New Negro (collecting works from writers including W.E.B. du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond)
- Loos, Anita: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
- Maugham, W. Somerset: The Painted Veil
- Mofolo, Thomas: Chaka
- O’Flaherty, Liam: The Informer
- Scarborough, Dorothy: On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs, and The Wind
- Sugimoto, Etsu: A Daughter of the Samurai
- von Harbou, Thea: Metropolis
- Wells, H.G.: Christina Alberta’s Father
- Wharton, Edith: The Writing of Fiction
- Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway
Art
- Belcova, Aleksandra: The White and the Black
- Dali, Salvador: Portrait of My Father
- Frentz, Rudolph: Horsewoman
- Hopper, Edward: House by the Railroad
- Kandinsky, Wassily: Three Elements
- Klee, Paul: Fish Magic
- Lytras, Nikolaos: The Straw Hat
- Manship, Paul: The Flight of Europa
- Miró, Joan: The Birth of the World
- Picasso, Pablo: The Three Dancers
- Rix Nicholas, Hilda: Les Fleurs Dédaignées
- Roth, Frederick: Statue of Balto
- Schlemmer, Oskar: Concentric Group
- Xu, Beihong: Jiang Biwei By a Table
Many thanks to the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke for studying and celebrating the public domain and for providing information about works entering the public domain this year.
Disclaimer: I tried to find a couple sources for each item listed, but please use this list with care and do your own research on publication dates.
