From "A Farewell to Arms" to the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor, thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday.

From “A Farewell to Arms” to the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor, thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday.

US copyright law expires after 95 years for books, films and other works of art, while sound recordings from 1924 will also be copyright-free. By entering the public domain, the pieces can be copied, shared, reproduced or adapted by anyone without paying the rights owner.

Every December, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain publishes a list1 of the cultural works that lose their copyright in the new year. The center, part of the Duke University School of Law in the southeastern US state of North Carolina, makes the list available on its website for anyone to peruse.

1 https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/