- Find Information
- Research Guides
- Public Domain
Public Domain
This Research Guide provides information on the Public Domain and suggestions for resources to find public domain items.
- What is the Public Domain?
- Copyright Expiration & Notice
- Public Domain Day 2025
- Finding and Using Items in Public Domain
- More Resources
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Public Domain Day 2025
Under U.S. law, works published in 1929 will enter the public domain on January 1, 2024. Additionally, thanks to the Copyright Term Extension Act, all sound recordings from 1924 will also enter the public domain in 2025.
New titles used to enter the public domain annually, as their copyrights expired, but the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 froze the public domain for the next 20 years. As of January 1st 2019, we can enjoy and celebrate the addition of new public domain works every year, from books to movies to musical scores.
-
Public Domain Day 2024Blog post by Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, listing items entering the public domain in 2024
Notable Public Domain 2025 Works at UTSA Libraries
Note that this is just a small fraction of the many works that entered the public domain in 2025.
Books and Plays
-
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Call Number: PS3511 .A86S7 1984ISBN: 0075536668Publication Date: 1929Retells the tragic times of the Compson family, including beautiful, rebellious Caddy; manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. -
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Call Number: PS3515 .E37 F3 1995ISBN: 0684801469Publication Date: 1929Ernest Hemingway's classic novel of love during wartime. Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield, this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Hemingway famously rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. A classic novel of love during wartime, "A Farewell to Arms stands, more than eighty years after its first appearance, as a towering ornament of American literature" (The Washington Times). -
A room of one's own by Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 1118299205Publication Date: 1929A Room of One's Own, is one of Virginia Woolf's most influential works and is widely recognized for its extraordinary contribution to the women's movement. This timely and important new edition adopts the complete text of the first British edition published in 1929. Features a comprehensive introduction detailing the process and composition of Woolf's original essay and the evolution of its subsequent publication history The first comprehensive and authoritative edition of this foundational text of the feminist movement, and one of the most significant works in Woolf's own canon. -
All Quiet on the Western Front
Call Number: PT2635.E68 I625 1996ISBN: 0099532816Publication Date: 1929The first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic enters the public domain in 2025.
Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
Films
-
The very first iteration of Mickey Mouse enters the public domain in 2025. Mickey appeared as a character in the short film "The Karnival Kid.
-
The Marx Brothers in their first filmic appearance, directed by Robert Florey and Joseph Santley.
-
Directed by Harry Beaumont (winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture)
-
Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film.
Public Domain Day 2025 List
-
Public Domain Day 2025For more information about works entering the public domain in 2025, visit this web page from Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain.