<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Betty Boop and "Blondie" are joining Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh in the public domain.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The first appearances of the classic cartoon and comic characters are among the pieces of intellectual property whose 95-year US copyright maximum has been reached, putting them in the public domain on January 1.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That means creators can use and repurpose them without permission or payment.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/woman-swept-out-to-sea-body-found-maroubra-sydney/6d33ac39-acfc-4c19-a43f-4d406a27c055" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Drowning death, missing swimmer mark grim start to 2026</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The 2026 batch of newly public artistic creations doesn't quite have the sparkle of the recent first entries into the public domain of Mickey or Winnie. But ever since 2019 – the end of a 20-year IP drought brought on by congressional copyright extensions – every annual crop has been a bounty for advocates of more work belonging to the public.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It's a big year," said Jennifer Jenkins, law professor and director of Duke's Centre for the Study of the Public Domain, for whom New Year's Day is celebrated as Public Domain Day.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It's just the sheer familiarity of all this culture."</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/betty-boop-blondie-everything-entering-public-domain-in-2026/d62eba01-b070-4b73-a563-fa51442c8700" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Jenkins said that, collectively, this year's work shows "the fragility that was between the two wars and the depths of the Great Depression."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Here's a closer look at what will enter the public domain on Thursday, based on the research of Jenkins and her center.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>Cartoons and comics bring the boop-a-doop</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Betty Boop began as a dog. Seriously.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When she first appears in the 1930 short "Dizzy Dishes," one of four of her cartoons entering the public domain, she's already totally recognizable as the Jazz Age flapper later memorialised in countless tattoos, T-shirts and bumper stickers.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She has her baby face, short hair with groomed curls, flashy eyelashes and miniature mouth. But she's also got dangling poodle ears and a tiny black nose. Those would soon morph into dangling earrings and a tiny white nose.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She started as essentially the Minnie Mouse to a popular anthropomorphic dog named Bimbo, whom she would eventually outshine – and push aside. She's got a supporting role in "Dizzy Dishes," performing a slinky song-and-dance in a tiny black dress. She's not named, but sings "boop boop, a doop."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/january-1-2026-changes-australia-cash-mandate-welfare-payment-increase-and-end-of-energy-rebates/3ee6f54c-b827-499b-889d-86acec262250" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Welfare boost, cash mandate, higher costs: All the changes in effect from today</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Jenkins suggests this canine Betty Boop could be rich for exploitation in new works, and has a free idea: "She was bitten by a radioactive dog, that's why she had this weird backstory," she said with a laugh. "This movie needs to be made."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The character was designed and owned by Fleischer Studios, and the shorts were released by Paramount Pictures. She was based at least in part on singer Helen Kane, known as the "Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl," thanks to a hit 1929 song.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Kane would lose a lawsuit over Betty Boop's character and use of the phrase. During the proceedings the defence alleged Black singer Esther Lee Jones used similar phrases first.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Artists are now free to use this earliest Boop in films and similar work. But making merch won't be free. In an important distinction often raised by Disney over Mickey Mouse, a character's trademark is distinct from the copyright of works that feature them. The Fleischer Productions trademark of Betty Boop remains intact.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://wwos.nine.com.au/cricket/news-2025-damien-martyn-rushed-to-hospital-sick-illness-australia-world-cup-batter-hero/595d6319-a771-4d99-be21-27c4c0d91917" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Tributes pour in as Aussie great remains in 'serious condition'</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Boops and doops were apparently in the air in 1930. Blondie Boopadoop was, like Betty, a young flapper, and the central character of Chic Young's newspaper comic strip that debuted in 1930. It inspired a film series and radio show, and is still running today in papers that still have comics.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The strip followed her carefree breeze through life with her boyfriend, Dagwood Bumstead. The two would marry (and she would change her name) in 1933, and the strip would become the sandwich-heavy domestic comedy familiar to later readers. Though the strip was meant to be based on a woman's life, Dagwood would in many ways become its breakout star – a proto-Adam Driver, if you will, as the breakout actor from "Girls."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Nine new Mickey Mouse cartoons also are becoming public domain, two years after "Steamboat Willie" made the first version of him public property. He's joined this year by his dog Pluto, who, in 1930, was known as Rover. (He would get his long-term moniker the following year.)</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>Books bring big detective debuts</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The books entering the public domain this year open the door to three iconic detectives from the 20th century:</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><ul><li><span>The teen sleuth Nancy Drew, whose first four books came in 1930, starting with "The Secret of the Old Clock." They were written by Mildred Benson under the pen name Carolyn Keene.</span></li><li><span>The middle-aged(-ish) sleuth Sam Spade, who debuted via the full-book version of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon." (It had been serialized in a magazine the previous year.)</span></li><li><span>The elderly sleuth Miss Marple, who solves her first mystery in Agatha Christie's "Murder at the Vicarage."</span></li><li><span>A year after his "The Sound and the Fury" became public, William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" becomes public domain. It would help lead to his Nobel Prize in literature.</span></li><li><span>And kiddie lit legends Dick and Jane, who taught generations to read and became essential parody fodder for decades, become public via the "Elson Basic Readers" textbooks.</span></li></ul></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>Films include Marxes, Marlene and Oscar winners</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A year after their film debut, "The Cocoanuts," entered the public domain, the Marx Brothers' beloved "Animal Crackers" joins it, as they entered their prime of high cinematic antics.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The film finds Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo invading a Long Island society party celebrating an explorer of Africa.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Other movies entering the public domain include:</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><ul><li><span>"The Blue Angel," the German film from Josef von Sternberg that emblazoned Marlene Dietrich's top-hatted image into film lore.</span></li><li><span>"King of Jazz," featuring the first screen appearance of Bing Crosby.</span></li><li><span>A pair of Oscar best picture winners, "All Quiet on the Western Front," which won in 1930, and "Cimarron," which won in 1931. The award was known as "Outstanding Production" then, and the Academy Awards eligibility period didn't sync with the calendar year.</span></li></ul></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The coming decade will bring a true bounty of Hollywood Golden Age films into the public domain. 2027 will be a truly monster year, literally, with the original 1931 Universal Pictures versions of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" among the titles due.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><h3><strong><span>Dreamy and embraceable tunes ring in the 1930s</span></strong></h3></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>As in the last several years, a whistle-worthy stream of tunes from the Great American Songbook will become public:</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><ul><li><span>Four cherished classics written by George Gershwin, with lyrics by his brother Ira: "Embraceable You," "I've Got a Crush on You," "But Not for Me" and "I Got Rhythm."</span></li><li><span>"Georgia on My Mind," written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell.</span></li><li><span>"Dream a Little Dream of Me," written by Gus Kahn, Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt.</span></li></ul></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Different laws regulate the actual recordings of songs, and those newly in the public domain this week date to 1925.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>They include Rodgers and Hart's "Manhattan" by the Knickerbockers, "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" by Marian Anderson and "The St Louis Blues" by Bessie Smith, featuring Louis Armstrong.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the</span></em></strong><span> </span><a href="https://apps.apple.com/au/app/9news/id1010533727" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>Apple App Store</span></em></strong></a><span> </span><strong><em><span>and</span></em></strong><span> </span><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nineNewsAlerts.nine.com&amp;hl=en_AU&amp;pli=1" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>Google Play</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>.</span></em></strong></div></div>