Betty Boop goes Boop-Oop-A-Doop back into public domain in 2026 — along with a band of other creations from 1930 including books, music and comic strips.
Under U.S. law, thousands of artistic works, including Betty Boop, reached their 95-year copyright maximum on Jan. 1, which makes them available to creators for use, modification and repurpose without payment or permission.
Joining Betty Boop in 2026’s batch of now-public works is Nancy Drew, “Blondie” and her husband Dagwood, Miss Marple and Dick and Jane. They now are in good company with the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey Mouse, Popeye and Winnie the Pooh, which all entered public domain in recent years.
“When works go into the public domain, they can legally be shared, without permission or fee. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees,” writes Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle of Centers for the Study of Public Domain.
“This helps enable both access to and preservation of cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history.”
The creations joining public domain this year provide a glimpse into U.S. culture nearly a century ago. Between both world wars and entering the depths of the Great Depression, Betty Boop, created for Fleischer Studios, was a young flirtatious flapper who represented an ongoing shift in American culture, particularly among women — she was urban, independent and confident in her sexuality.
“Max and Dave Fleischer’s characters were drawn from the urban environment they knew so well. Vaudeville, dance-halls, diners, drinking and drugs were routinely part of the hallucinogenic mayhem,” Jenkins and Boyle shared, per Centers for the Study of Public Domain.
Blondie Boopadoop, like Betty, was also a young flapper, and first appeared in a newspaper comic strip and later portrayed in dozens of films, a TV series and a radio sitcom. In contrast to Betty, Blondie was a cheerful housewife who represented stability, tradition and the family unit.
Also entering public domain are a parade of mystery novels, including the first four “Nancy Drew” books by Carolyn Keene, “The Murder at the Vicarage,” by Agatha Christie and “The Maltese Falcon,” by Dashiell Hammett. The 1920s and 1930s are largely considered “The Golden Age of Mystery and Detective Fiction,” as they offered affordable entertainment and an escape from daily stress in a financially-wobbly America.
“All Quiet on the Western Front,” the anti-war film based on the novel of the same name, will also enter the public domain. The multi-Oscar winning film follows young German soldiers through the brutal trench warfare of WWI, showing the true horrors of war. It was radically different from previous patriotic war films.
“It’s a big year,” Jenkins told AP News, noting that this year’s batch of now-public creations shows “the fragility that was between the two wars and the depths of the Great Depression.”
Other characters joining public domain 2026
Thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 entered public domain on Jan. 1.
“This year’s entrants into the public domain are a wonderful group — enthralling, and deeply entertaining," wrote Jenkins and Boyle per Centers for the Study of Public Domain. “It is fascinating to reflect on these works from 1930. What leaps out at you is the humanity behind them — the wit, the stylistic innovation, the stories being told in the shadow of World War I and in the midst of the Great Depression."
“Their artistic output is not merely a snapshot of our culture at a moment in time or an entertaining postcard from the past. It is a record of the lives they lived, the emotions they felt, and the art they made as a result of it.”
Here are some of the creative works that entered public domain in 2026.
Books
- “As I Lay Dying,” William Faulkner
- “The Murder at the Vicarage,” Agatha Christie
- “The Little Engine That Could,” Watty Piper
- “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot
- The first four “Nancy Drew” novels, Carolyn Keene
- “Private Lives,” Noël Coward
- “The 42nd Parallel,” John Dos Passos
- “Civilization And Its Discontents,” Sigmund Freud
- “The Maltese Falcon,” by Dashiell Hammett
- “Elson Basic Readers,” by William H. Elson (includes first appearance of Dick and Jane)
Characters, comic and cartoons
- Betty Boop from Fleischer Studios’ “Dizzy Dishes” and other cartoons
- Blondie and Dagwood from the “Blondie” comic strips by Chic Young
- Rover (renamed Pluto) from Disney’s “The Chain Gang” and “The Picnic”
- Flip the Frog from “Fiddlesticks” and other cartoons
- Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons
Films
- “All Quiet on the Western Front”
- “King of Jazz”
- “Cimarron”
- “Animal Crackers”
- “Hell’s Angels”
- “Free and Easy”
- “Soup to Nuts”
- “The Divorcee”
Musical compositions
- “Georgia on My Mind,” lyrics by Stuart Gorrell, music by Hoagy Carmichael
- “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” lyrics by Gus Kahn, music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt
- “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight,” lyrics by Al Lewis, music by Al Sherman
- “On The Sunny Side of the Street,” lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Jimmy McHugh
- “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” lyrics and music by Walter Donaldson
- “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” lyrics by Leo Robin, music by Richard A. Whiting and W. Franke Harling
Sound recordings
- “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” recorded by Gene Austin
- “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” recorded by Marian Anderson
- “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon,” recorded by Bessie Smith
- “Sweet Georgia Brown,” recorded by Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra
- “Everybody Love My Baby (But My Baby Don’t Love Me),” recorded by Clarence Williams’ Blue Five
- “The St. Louis Blues,” recorded by Bessie Smith, featuring Louis Armstrong
- “Manhattan,” recorded by The Knickerbockers