STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This New Year's Day is Public Domain Day. As with each January 1, some old copyrighted works enter the public domain, meaning the copyright expires, and anybody can use them. This year's works include this classic.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE")
CLIFF EDWARDS: (Singing) I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain.
INSKEEP: That version appeared in an early talkie film, "The Hollywood Revue," of 1929. The Gene Kelly version of this song is a little newer and still protected. That's because for the most part, the items that lose their copyright are just a day over 95 years old - items from 1929. Jennifer Jenkins loves this stuff. She is co-director of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Works from 1929, what is entering the public domain?
JENNIFER JENKINS: OK, I will give you my total top ones. There's some literary masterpieces that you probably had to read in high school or in college. They include Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell To Arms."
INSKEEP: Oh. Great.
JENKINS: Yeah. William Faulkner's "The Sound And The Fury,"
INSKEEP: Ah.
JENKINS: Virginia Woolf's "A Room Of One's Own," and then from the hard-boiled detective genre, the very first appearance of "The Maltese Falcon," which was serialized in a magazine called Black Mask magazine.
INSKEEP: That's really something. OK, wow. That's quite a list. What about in other forms of art?
JENKINS: Here are some songs going into the public domain. Fats Waller "Ain't Misbehavin'." Great song. Public domain. Gershwin's "An American In Paris," so really captures the vibe of the city. That would be public domain. I just have to mention one more 'cause love, love, love, love this song, "Bolero" by Ravel.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAURICE RAVEL'S "BOLERO")
JENKINS: Let's talk about movies. So 1929 was a pivotal year for cinema, 'cause that's the year that sound films really replace silent films. Alfred Hitchcock made his first sound film. Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford. Plus we get "The Cocoanuts," which is the Marx Brothers' first feature film, which is fantastic.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE COCOANUTS")
GROUCHO MARX: (As Hammer) Think. Think of the opportunities here in Florida. Three years ago, I came to Florida without a nickel in my pocket. Now I've got a nickel in my pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) That's all very well, Mr. Hammer, but we have been paid in two weeks, and we want our wages.
G MARX: (As Hammer) Wages? Do you want to be wage slaves? Answer me that.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) No.
G MARX: (As Hammer) No, of course, not. But what makes wage slaves - wages.
JENKINS: So there are a lot of amazing films that will be public domain. And there's also cartoons. So last year famously, the very first appearance of Mickey Mouse was public domain, but this year, we get a dozen new Mickey Mouse films in which he wears his white gloves for the first time. And he also speaks his first words, which are...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE KARNIVAL KID")
CARL W STALLING: (As Mickey Mouse) Hot dogs. Hot dogs...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE KARNIVAL KID")
STALLING: (As Mickey Mouse) Hot dogs. Hot dogs.
JENKINS: Hot dogs. Hot dogs.
INSKEEP: There's an intricacy that maybe you can explain to me here because we said...
JENKINS: Sure.
INSKEEP: ...That Mickey Mouse escaped copyright, got out of the house. But then more Mickey Mouse is escaping copyright. Why would the deadline arrive more than once for one character?
JENKINS: Oh, well, some characters like Mickey Mouse develop in copyrighted works over time. And so their first appearance, 95 years ago, may be in the public domain, but their subsequent appearances may be still copyrighted.
INSKEEP: You didn't mention Popeye the sailor man yet, did you?
JENKINS: How could I not mention Popeye? So in terms of characters, some characters from comic strips that are going to be public domain in 2025 - the big one is Popeye, the sailor.
INSKEEP: But wait a minute. I think of Popeye as an animated feature. I guess that came later.
JENKINS: Yeah. That came a few years later. Yeah, initially, he was in a comic strip called the Thimble Theater strip, drawn by E. C. Segar. And I love his very first appearance, January 17, 1929. So he's standing there on a deck. He's decked out - ha,ha - in a full sailor costume. He's got his pipe in his mouth. He's got the giant anchor tattoo on his forearm. And Castor Oyl, who's Olive Oyl's brother, comes up to him and says, hey, there, you a sailor? and Popeye's very first words, he says, you think I'm a cowboy?
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
JENKINS: He's, like, sarcastic from the get-go, and he gets into fights all the time. But he also - and I think this is important and something I just discovered - he has a heart of gold. So the craziest thing we found with Popeye is two days before the stock market crash began - October 24, 1929 - there's a comic strip in which Popeye is imploring Castor Oyl, Olive Oyl's brother, not to kick this poor farmer off of his land. You know, it's the farm where the farmer grew up, the only home you ever knew. And Popeye is just there, like, begging, please don't kick him off of his farm, two days before the stock market crash began.
INSKEEP: Is really newsy because if I'm not mistaken, I mean, the farm economy declined well before the stock market. So he's really commenting on what people are experiencing.
JENKINS: Right. Right. And so this is what I love about these public domain works that we're talking about. It's a time capsule. It's a moment in history. It's a snapshot through the books, the movies, the comic strips, the music of our hopes and fears almost 100 years ago. And that's one of the many reasons to celebrate the public domain, and maybe to learn from it, too, because as you were saying, 1929 was quite a year. It was the end of the Roaring '20s, the stock market crash that leads to the Great Depression. And rediscovering - opening this time capsule and looking at all of these works is really an incredible experience, and it really resonates with our current moment surprisingly, as well.
INSKEEP: Let's talk about the connection between art and creativity and the law, which is what this is theoretically a story about. I guess copyright law spurs creativity by making it more likely that artists can be paid for their work.
JENKINS: Absolutely.
INSKEEP: Is there a new kind of creativity that is spurred by the copyright ending now?
JENKINS: Yes, indeed. So the public domain is like the yin to copyright's yang. So the yang are those rights that you just mentioned that spur and support creativity, but the yin is the public domain that ensures that artists have the raw material that they need to create in the first place. And I'd like to thank Christopher Nolan for making my point for me 'cause he just announced that he's making the star-studded, mythic action epic version of Homer's "The Odyssey" coming out in 2026....
INSKEEP: (Laughter) OK.
JENKINS: ...Using new IMAX technology. Homer's "The Odyssey" is a great example. And think about all the creativity that it has inspired from James Joyce's "Ulysses" to the Coen Brothers', "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" to now this big, like, action epic that sounds amazing coming from Christopher Nolan. So that's just one of the many examples of how the public domain is a built-in feature of the copyright system that works together with the copyrights in order to allow, promote, inspire creativity.
INSKEEP: Jennifer Jenkins is co-director of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.
JENKINS: It's been a delight talking to you. Happy New Year. Happy Public Domain Day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTHUR FIEDLER, ET AL.'S "AN AMERICAN IN PARIS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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