Popeye can punch without permission and Tintin can roam freely starting in 2025. The two classic comic characters who first appeared in 1929 are among the intellectual properties becoming public domain in the United States on Jan. 1. That means they can be used and repurposed without permission or payment to copyright holders.
This year’s crop of newly public artistic creations lacks the landmark vibes of last year’s entrance of Mickey Mouse into the public domain. But they include a deep well of canonical works whose 95-year copyright maximums will expire. And the Disney icon's public domain presence expands.
“It’s a trove! There are a dozen new Mickey cartoons — he speaks for the first time and dons the familiar white gloves,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. “There are masterpieces from Faulkner and Hemingway, the first sound films from Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, and John Ford, and amazing music from Fats Waller, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin. Pretty exciting!”
Here’s a closer look at this year’s crop.
Popeye the Sailor, with his bulging forearms, mealy-mouthed speech, and propensity for fistfights, was created by E.C. Segar and made his first appearance in the newspaper strip “Thimble Theater” in 1929, speaking his first words, “’Ja think I’m a cowboy?” when asked if he was a sailor. What was supposed to be a one-off appearance became permanent, and the strip would be renamed ”Popeye.”
But as with Mickey Mouse last year and Winnie the Pooh in 2022, only the earliest version is free for reuse. The spinach that gave the sailor his super-strength was not there from the start, and is the kind of character element that could spawn legal disputes. And the animated shorts featuring his distinctive mumbly voice didn’t begin until 1933 and remain under copyright. As does director Robert Altman’s 1980 film, starring Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as his oft-fought-over sweetheart Olive Oyl.
That movie was tepidly received initially. So was director Steven Spielberg’s “Adventures of Tintin” in 2011. But the comics about the boy reporter that inspired it, the creation of Belgian artist Hergé, were among the most popular in Europe for much of the 20th century.
The simply drawn teen with dots for eyes and bangs like an ocean wave first appeared in a supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, and became a weekly feature.
The comic also first appeared in the U.S. in 1929. Its signature bright colors — including Tintin’s red hair — didn’t appear until years later, and could, like Popeye’s spinach, be the subject of legal disputes.
And in much of the world, Tintin won’t become public property until 70 years after the 1983 death of his creator.
The books becoming public this year read like the syllabus for an American literature seminar.
“The Sound and the Fury,” arguably William Faulkner’s quintessential novel with its modernist stream-of-consciousness style, was a sensation after its publication despite being famously difficult for readers. It uses multiple non-linear narratives to tell the story of a prominent family’s ruin in the author’s native Mississippi, and would help lead to Faulkner’s Nobel Prize.
And Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” joins his earlier “The Sun Also Rises” in the public domain. The partly autobiographical story of an ambulance driver in Italy during the First World War cemented Hemingway’s status in the American literary canon. It has been frequently adapted for film, TV and radio, which can now be done without permission.
John Steinbeck’s first novel, “A Cup of Gold,” from 1929, will also enter the public domain.
The British novelist Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” an extended essay that would become a landmark in feminism from the modernist literary luminary, is also on the list. Her novel “Mrs. Dalloway” is already in the U.S. public domain.
While a host of truly major movies will become public in the coming decade, for now early works by major figures from the not-always-stellar early sound era will have to suffice.
A decade before he would move to Hollywood and make films like “Psycho,” and “Vertigo,” Alfred Hitchcock made “Blackmail” in Britain. The film was begun as a silent but shifted to sound during production, resulting in two different versions, one of them the UK’s — and Hitchcock’s — first sound film.
John Ford, whose later Westerns would put him among film’s most vaunted directors, also made his first foray into sound with 1929’s “The Black Watch,” an adventure epic that includes Ford’s future chief collaborator John Wayne as a young extra.
Cecil B. DeMille, already a Hollywood bigwig through silents, made his first talkie with the melodrama “Dynamite.”
Groucho, Harpo and the other Marx Brothers had their first starring movie roles in 1929’s “The Cocoanuts,” a forerunner to future classics like “Animal Crackers” and “Duck Soup.”
“The Broadway Melody,” the first sound film and the second film ever to win the Oscar for best picture — known as “outstanding production” at the time — will also become public, though it’s often ranked among the worst of best picture winners.
And after “Steamboat Willie” made the earliest Mickey Mouse public, a dozen more of his animations will get the same status, including “The Karnival Kid,” where he spoke for the first time.
Songs from the last year of the Roaring Twenties are also about to become public property.
Cole Porter’s compositions “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” are among the highlights, as is the jazz classic “Ain’t Misbehavin’, written by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks.
“Singin’ in the Rain,” which would later forever be associated with the 1952 Gene Kelly film, made its debut in the 1929 movie “The Hollywood Revue” and will now be public domain.
Different laws regulate sound recordings, and those newly in the public domain date to 1924. They include a recording of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” from future star and civil rights icon Marian Anderson, and “Rhapsody in Blue” performed by its composer George Gershwin.
FILE - A helium-filled Popeye balloon appears in the 33rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York on Nov. 26, 1959. (AP Photo/File)
This combination of photos show authors Ernest Hemingway in 1950, left, William Faulkner in 1950, center, and John Steinbeck in 1962. (AP Photo)
A Supreme Court decision striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana has amplified an already intense national redistricting battle by providing Republican officials in several states new grounds to redraw voting districts.
In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced Friday that she is calling a special legislative session to begin Monday in hopes that the Supreme Court allows the state to change its U.S. House map ahead of the November midterm elections.
Louisiana already has suspended its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts, though that is being challenged in court. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is pressuring other states such as Tennessee to also redistrict ahead of the midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the closely divided House.
Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same. Then other states joined the battle. Lawmakers, commissions or courts have adopted new House districts in eight states.
That total could grow following the Supreme Court’s decision that significantly weakened a provision in the federal Voting Rights Act.
Here’s a look at how some states are responding to the Supreme Court ruling:
Current House map: two Democrats, four Republicans
Early in-person voting was to begin Saturday for Louisiana’s primaries. But Republican Gov. Jeff Landry moved quickly Thursday to postpone the congressional primary while allowing elections for other offices to go forward.
A federal lawsuit filed later Thursday, on behalf of a Democratic congressional candidate and voter, asked a court to block Landry’s order and allow the House primary to occur as originally scheduled. Two more lawsuits asserting that the congressional primary should go forward were filed Friday in state court on behalf of voters who already had cast absentee ballots and several civil rights organizations.
Among other things, the lawsuits contend that Landry lacked authority to suspend the primary and that thousands of absentee ballots already have been mailed to people, with a substantial number filled out and returned.
Separately, a three-judge federal court panel that heard the case that was appealed to the Supreme Court also issued an order Thursday suspending Louisiana’s congressional primary.
Republican state House and Senate leaders said they are prepared to pass new U.S. House districts — and set a new primary election date — before their legislative session ends in a month.
Current House map: two Democrats, five Republicans
The state’s primaries are set for May 19. But Alabama officials on Thursday filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court seeking an expedited review of a pending appeal in a redistricting case that could affect the election.
A federal court in 2023 ordered the creation of a new near-majority Black district in Alabama, resulting in the election of a second Black representative to the U.S. House. Alabama is under a court order to use the new map until after the next census in 2030.
An appeal pending before the Supreme Court argues that the map is an illegal racial gerrymander, a claim similar to that made in Louisiana.
The state is seeking to lift an injunction blocking the use of a 2023 map drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature that did not include the new district. The state is making a similar request for two state Senate districts impacted by a separate redistricting case.
Ivey said the special legislative session will focus on a contingency plan to have special primary elections in case the Supreme Court acts quickly enough to allow Alabama’s previously drawn districts to be used this year.
Current House map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans
Hours after the Supreme Court’s decision, Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved new U.S. House districts that could help the GOP win up to four additional seats in November.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special legislative session without knowing when the Supreme Court would issue its opinion in the Louisiana case. But DeSantis expressed confidence that the court would rule as it did. Among other things, the new map reshapes a southeastern Florida district that DeSantis said was created to help elect a Black representative in an attempt to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.
A Florida constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2010 prohibits districts from being drawn to deny or diminish the ability of racial or language minorities to elect the representatives of their choice. DeSantis said he considers that amendment a violation of the U.S. Constitution. That question is expected to be decided by the courts.
Current House map: one Democrat, eight Republicans
The Tennessee General Assembly recently ended its annual session. But pressure is growing to bring lawmakers back to revise the state’s congressional districts.
Trump posted on social media Thursday that he had spoken with Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who he said would work hard for a new map that could help Republicans gain an additional seat. Democrats currently hold only one seat, a district centered in Memphis, which is majority Black.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said he is in conversations with the White House and others while reviewing the court’s decision.
The state’s candidate qualifying period ended in March. The primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Current House map: one Democrat, three Republicans
Mississippi held its U.S. House primaries in March. But the Supreme Court’s decision could affect elections for other offices.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced previously that he would call a special legislative session to redraw voting districts for the state Supreme Court that would begin 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Louisiana case. That would put the special session's start at around May 20.
A federal judge last year ordered Mississippi to redraw its Supreme Court voting districts after finding that they violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters. Mississippi lawmakers had been waiting on a decision in the Louisiana case before moving forward, but their legislative session ended in April.
Reeves said in his proclamation that the Supreme Court’s decision would provide guidance to lawmakers on whether “race-conscious redistricting” violates the U.S. Constitution.
Current House map: five Democrats, nine Republicans
Early in-person voting began April 27 and continues for the next few weeks ahead of Georgia’s primary elections on May 19.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said it’s too late for Georgia officials to try to change congressional districts for this year’s elections, because voting already is underway. But he said the rationale in the Supreme Court’s decision “requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”
Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, Jack Brook and Kim Chandler contributed to this report.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
A person walks past a voting sign during the first day of early voting for the primary elections at the Dunwoody Library in Atlanta, Monday, April 27, 2026. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
