Social:2025 in public domain

Short description: Overview of works entering public domain

The works of Colette will enter the public domain in Europe in 2025.

When a work's copyright expires, it enters the public domain. The following is a list of creators whose works enter the public domain in 2025. Since laws vary globally, the copyright status of some works are not uniform.

Entering the public domain in countries with life + 70 years

With the exception of Belarus (Life + 50 years) and Spain (which has a copyright term of Life + 80 years for creators that died before 1987), a work enters the public domain in Europe 70 years after the creator's death, if it was published during the creator's lifetime. For previously unpublished material, those who publish it first will have the publication rights for 25 years. The list is sorted alphabetically and includes a notable work of the creator that entered the public domain on 1 January 2025.

Names	Country	Birth	Death	Occupation	Notable work
Sait Faik Abasıyanık	Turkey	1906	1954	Writer
Franco Alfano	Italy	1875	1954	Composer	List of operas by Franco Alfano
Oswald de Andrade	Brazil	1890	1954	Writer
Stig Dagerman	Sweden	1923	1954	Writer, Journalist
Lionel Barrymore	United States	1878	1954	Actor, film director	Lionel Barrymore on stage, screen and radio
Jacinto Benavente	Spain	1866	1954	Writer
Werner Bischof	Switzerland	1916	1954	Photographer
Robert Capa	Hungary	1913	1954	Photographer
Colette	France	1873	1954	Writer	Claudine series, The Tendrils of the Vine, Gigi
André Derain	France	1880	1954	Painter, sculptor
Wilhelm Furtwängler	Germany	1880	1954	Conductor, composer
E. Ray Goetz	United States	1886	1954	Composer, lyricist	"For Me and My Gal"
Heinz Guderian	Germany	1888	1954	General	Achtung – Panzer!, Panzer Leader
Thea von Harbou	Germany	1888	1954	Writer, film director	Metropolis
James Hilton	United Kingdom	1900	1954	Writer	Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Lost Horizon
Sydney Horler	United Kingdom	1888	1954	Writer
Raymond Hubbell	United States	1879	1954	Composer, lyricist	"Poor Butterfly"
Charles Ives	United States	1874	1954	Composer	List of compositions by Charles Ives
Hans Janowitz	Germany	1890	1954	Screenwriter	The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Frida Kahlo	Mexico	1907	1954	Painter	List of paintings by Frida Kahlo
Kalki Krishnamurthy	India	1899	1954	Writer	Ponniyin Selvan
Achille Longo	Italy	1900	1954	Composer
Gino Loria	Italy	1862	1954	Mathematician
Henri Matisse	France	1869	1954	Painter, sculptor	List of works by Henri Matisse
Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck	Netherlands	1887	1954	Poet
Getúlio Vargas	Brazil	1882	1954	Politician	Carta Testamento
Alpheus Hyatt Verrill	United States	1871	1954	Writer, zoologist
Dziga Vertov	Soviet Union	1896	1954	Film director
Francis Brett Young	United Kingdom	1884	1954	Writer, composer

Entering the public domain in countries with life + 80 years

Spain has a copyright term of life + 80 years for creators that died before 1987. The list is sorted alphabetically and includes a notable work of the creator that entered the public domain on 1 January 2025.

Names	Country	Birth	Death	Occupation	Notable work
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński	Poland	1921	1944	Poet
George Herriman	United States	1880	1944	Cartoonist	Krazy Kat
Winsor McCay	United States	1866–71	1944	Cartoonist, illustrator and animator	Little Nemo Dream of the Rarebit Fiend Gertie the Dinosaur
Piet Mondrian	Netherlands	1872	1944	Painter and art theoretician	Gray Tree Composition with Red Blue and Yellow Broadway Boogie Woogie
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	France	1900	1944	Writer	The Little Prince
W. Heath Robinson	United Kingdom	1872	1944	Cartoonist, illustrator, artist

Countries with life + 60 years

India

Names	Country	Birth	Death	Occupation	Notable work
J. B. S. Haldane	United Kingdom India	1892	1964	Geneticist, biologist	Daedalus; or, Science and the Future, The Causes of Evolution, My Friend Mr Leakey

Entering the public domain in countries with life + 50 years

In most countries of Africa and Asia, as well as Belarus , Bolivia, New Zealand, Egypt and Uruguay; a work enters the public domain 50 years after the creator's death.

Names	Country	Birth	Death	Occupation	Notable work
Farid al-Atrash	Syria Egypt	1917	1974	Musician
Hector Bolitho	New Zealand	1897	1974	Author
Nellie Coad	New Zealand	1883	1974	Teacher, writer	New Zealand: From Tasman to Massey
Maurice Duggan	New Zealand	1922	1974	Writer
Julius Evola	Italy	1898	1974	Philosopher	Revolt Against the Modern World
Georgette Heyer	United Kingdom	1902	1974	Author	These Old Shades
Eve Langley	New Zealand	1904	1974	Writer
Margaret MacPherson	New Zealand	1895	1974	Writer, journalist
P. Schuyler Miller	United States	1912	1974	SF Author
Leslie Munro	New Zealand	1901	1974	Diplomat, politician, journalist	United Nations: hope for a divided world
Robert Charles Zaehner	United Kingdom	1913	1974	Historian of religion, Spy	Zurvan. A Zoroastrian Dilemma, Mysticism: Sacred and Profane, Our Savage God

Australia and Canada

In 2004 copyright in Australia changed from a "plus 50" law to a "plus 70" law, in line with the United States and the European Union. But the change was not made retroactive (unlike the 1995 change in the European Union which brought some (British and possibly other) authors back into copyright, especially those who died from 1925 to 1944). Hence the work of an author who died before 1955 is normally in the public domain in Australia; but the copyright of authors was extended to 70 years after death for those who died in 1955 or later, and no more Australian authors will come out of copyright until 1 January 2026 (those who died in 1955).

Similarly, Canada amended its Copyright Act in 2022 from a "plus 50" law to a "plus 70" law, coming into force on December 30, 2022, but does not revive expired copyright. No more new Canadian authors will come out of copyright until 1 January 2043 (those who died in 1972).

United States

Among the works entering the public domain in the United States in 2025 is the Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts

Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books published in 1929, films released in 1929, and other works published in 1929, will enter the public domain in 2025. Sound recordings that were published in 1924 will enter the public domain. The characters Buck Rogers, Captain Easy and Popeye the Sailor Man will enter the public domain in 2025. The same happens for the first Tarzan strips illustrated by Hal Foster launched in 1929.

Unpublished works whose authors died in 1954 will enter the public domain in 2025.

Among the films that will enter public domain in 2025 is the first film of The Marx Brothers, The Cocoanuts, second Academy Award for Best Picture winner The Broadway Melody, Buster Keaton's final full-length feature as a director Spite Marriage, Harold Lloyd's first sound film Welcome Danger, the first sound film in color On with the Show!, the first Shakespeare film-adaptation with sound The Taming of the Shrew, Hallelujah which is the first Hollywood film with an all black cast, The Cock-Eyed World, Show Boat containing some songs of the 1927 musical, Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film Blackmail, Atlantic which is the first sound film about the Titanic-disaster, the first French sound film The Three Masks, the first German sound film Land Without Women, Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon, G.W. Pabst's Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl both starring Louise Brooks, Documentary film Drifters, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's film Un Chien Andalou, Man Ray's film The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice, and Joris Ivens' Rain, the sound versions of the Mickey Mouse-cartoons The Gallopin' Gaucho, Plane Crazy and The Karnival Kid (the latter in which Mickey speaks his first words), and the first Silly Symphony cartoons, including The Skeleton Dance.

Examples of important literary works entering the public domain include Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms, Ellery Queen's detective novel The Roman Hat Mystery, Margery Allingham detective novel The Crime at Black Dudley, the first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz in its original German, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's novel Pather Panchali in its original Bengali, Lynd Ward's graphic novel Gods' Man, William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own, Ludwig Wittgenstein's essay Some Remarks on Logical Form and the first part of the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.

Important artworks entering the public domain include René Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, Salvador Dali's paintings The Great Masturbator and The Accommodations of Desire, Wassily Kandinsky's painting Upward, Edward Hopper's painting Chop Suey, Kawamura Kiyoo's painting Founding of the Nation, Julio Romero de Torres' painting La Fuensanta, August Sander's photograph Berlin Coal Carrier and the first design of the Barcelona chair.

See also

• 1954 in literature and 1974 in literature for deaths of writers
• Public Domain Day
• Creative Commons

External links

• "Authors by Year of Death – 1954". AuthorAndBookInfo.com. http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/abyod/1954.htm. 
• Popular Books of 1929 at Goodreads