| Jean Absil |  Belgium
Countries with life + 60 yearsIn Bangladesh, Haiti, India, and Venezuela a work enters the public domain 60 years after the creator's death.
| Names | Country | Death | Occupation | Notable work | | Dr. Atl |  Mexico
Countries with life + 70 yearsExcept for Belarus and Spain, a work enters the public domain in Europe 70 years after the creator's death, if it was published during the creator's lifetime. The same term applies in much of South America, and parts of western Africa. As such, the works of all authors who died in 1954 entered the European public domain in 2025.
Two of the most important authors whose works entered the European public domain in 2025 were Henri Matisse, one of the most revolutionary artists of the early 20th century and a key figure in multiple art movements; and Frida Kahlo, arguably the most recognized Mexican painter. At this time, the latter's works remained copyrighted in her native country. Other significant examples of authors whose works entered the public domain included actor and film director Lionel Barrymore, architects Auguste Perret and William Van Alen, cartoonists Bud Fisher and George McManus, Italian composers Franco Alfano and Achille Longo, German composers Walter Braunfels and Herms Niel, Austrian composer Fred Raymond, American composers Charles Ives and Arthur Johnston, Man with a Movie Camera director Dziga Vertov, founding father of Chinese cinema Zhang Shichuan, French painters André Derain and, Portuguese sculptor Maximiano Alves, gospel blues musician Washington Phillips, Lost Horizon author James Hilton, British novelist Francis Brett Young, Gigi author Colette, German author of the Dr. Mabuse novels Norbert Jacques, German writer and filmmaker Thea von Harbou, Italian writer, American novelist Maxwell Bodenheim, and Australian writer Miles Franklin. Spanish writer Jacinto Benavente's works also entered the public domain in European countries other than his native Spain. The publications of mathematicians Gino Loria and Alan Turing and physicist Enrico Fermi also entered the public domain, along with an experimental film by the inventor of the cinematograph, Auguste Lumière.
Countries with life + 80 yearsSpain has a copyright term of life + 80 years for creators that died before 1987. In Colombia and Equatorial Guinea, a work enters the public domain 80 years after the creator's death.
| Names | Country | Death | Occupation | Notable work | | Joaquín Álvarez Quintero |  Spain
RussiaRussia has a copyright term of life + 70 years in general, with two special provisions:
- extra 4 years for those who fought in or worked during the so-called Great Patriotic War in 1941–1945, and/or
- copyright term starting from the date of rehabilitation for unlawfully prosecuted and posthumously rehabilitated.
1954 marks the first large wave of posthumous rehabilitations.
| Names | Country | Death | Occupation | Notable work | | Pavel Bazhov |  Soviet Union
Australia and CanadaIn 2004 copyright in Australia changed from a "plus 50" law to a "plus 70" law, in line with the United States and the European Union. But the change was not made retroactive. Hence, the work of an author who died before 1955 is normally in the public domain in Australia; but the copyright of authors was extended to 70 years after death for those who died in 1955 or later, and no more Australian authors would come out of copyright until 1 January 2026.
Similarly, Canada amended its Copyright Act in 2022 from a "plus 50" law to a "plus 70" law, coming into force on December 30, 2022, but does not revive expired copyright. No more new Canadian authors will come out of copyright until 1 January 2043. Crown copyright was not changed, thus any government works published in 1974 entered the public domain in 2025.
Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books and other works published in 1929 and films released in 1929 entered the public domain in 2025. Unpublished works whose authors died in 1954 also entered the public domain. The character Captain Easy, Popeye the Sailor Man, Disney's Horace Horsecollar, and Hergé's Tintin entered the public domain through their respective debut appearances in 2025. The same happened for the first Tarzan strips illustrated by Hal Foster. On the other hand, the character Buck Rogers was already in the public domain as his first strips failed to have their copyrights renewed, despite claims to the contrary.
Two notable music compositions that entered the public domain in 2025 are George Gershwin's An American in Paris and Maurice Ravel's Boléro; though composed in 1928, they were not published until 1929. Among the popular songs that entered the public domain that year are Fats Waller's song "Ain't Misbehavin'", Cole Porter's song "What Is This Thing Called Love?", the musical number "Singin' in the Rain", "Tip Toe Through the Tulips", "Happy Days Are Here Again", "Am I Blue?", "You Were Meant For Me", "Honeysuckle Rose", "Can't We Be Friends?", and "Without A Song". Sound recordings that were published in 1924 also entered the public domain, including the first recordings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Jelly Roll Morton's "King Porter Stomp", Irving Berlin's songs "Lazy" and "What'll I Do?", "It Had to Be You", "California, Here I Come", and "Somebody Loves Me".
Notable films that entered the public domain in 2025 include the following:The Cocoanuts, the first film of the Marx Brothers;The Broadway Melody, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's first musical film and the first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture;The Hollywood Revue, MGM's second musical film, starring Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny, which popularized "Singin' in the Rain";
- Walt Disney's first Silly Symphony cartoons, including The Skeleton Dance;Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film and the first British sound film;Hallelujah, one of the first films with an all-African American cast produced by a major studio;The Wild Party, Clara Bow's first sound film;Welcome Danger, Harold Lloyd's first sound film;On with the Show!, the first sound film in color;Pandora’s Box, directed by G. W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks;Show Boat, adapted from and featuring some songs of the 1927 musical;The Black Watch, John Ford's first sound film;Spite Marriage, Buster Keaton's final full-length feature as a director;Say It with Songs, the first all-talking film starring Al Jolson;Dynamite, Cecil B. DeMille's first sound film;Gold Diggers of Broadway, directed by Roy del Ruth, the second sound film in color;
- Mickey Mouse's cartoons released in 1929, including The Karnival Kid ;
- the sound versions of Mickey's earlier cartoons Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho;
- Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's surviving cartoons from the Winkler studio and his first Walter Lantz-era releases;Small Talk, the first sound film in the Our Gang series;Eternal Love, John Barrymore's last silent film;The Virginian, Gary Cooper's and Victor Fleming's first sound film;The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first sound film to star the titular detective;Bulldog Drummond, the first sound film to star the character of the same name;The Three Masks, the first French sound film;Behind That Curtain, the first sound film to star the character Charlie Chan;Where East Is East, Lon Chaney's last collaboration with Tod Browning; Land Without Women , the first German sound film;The Desert Song, also directed by Roy del Ruth;Applause, the directorial debut of Rouben Mamoulian;Disraeli, starring George Arliss in the title role;Woman in the Moon, directed by Fritz Lang; andThe Love Parade, Ernst Lubitsch's first sound film and the debut film for Jeanette MacDonald.
Significant literary works entering the public domain included Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms, Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own, William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, Oliver La Farge's novel Laughing Boy, Walter Lippmann's A Preface to Morals, James Thurber's Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do, Robert Graves' autobiography Good-Bye to All That, Patrick Hamilton's play Rope, Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica, John Steinbeck's first novel Cup of Gold, Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest and the original serialized version of his Maltese Falcon, the first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Agatha Christie's crime novel The Seven Dials Mystery, The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen, Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz in its original German, S. S. Van Dine's detective novel The Scarab Murder Case, Sinclair Lewis' novel Dodsworth, the children's book Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel, Jean Cocteau's novel Les Enfants Terribles in its original French, and William Seabrook's novel The Magic Island, the first book to introduce the concept of a zombie.
Important examples of artworks that entered the public domain include Salvador Dalí's paintings Illumined Pleasures, The Great Masturbator, and The Accommodations of Desire. Publication records for other major artworks created in 1929 have yet to be located. The public domain status of René Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images is particularly contentious.
2025's wave of American public domain entrants attracted the interest of a number of notable media outlets, namely CBS Saturday Morning, NPR's Morning Edition, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and Marketplace.
IndiaOn 1 January 2025, M. P. Parameswaran gave his formal consent to release a selection of his works under a free license, making them available to the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. A ceremony was held at his residence where the first batch of books marked for digitization to the Wikimedia community. The digitisation process was undertaken by the Sahya Digital Conservation Foundation, with representatives from the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad, the Wikimedians of Kerala User Group, and other volunteers in attendance.
WorldwideOn February 25, 2025, it was announced that the 3D printing computer model 3DBenchy will enter the public domain through a CC0-license.
A 3D printable computer model of the sculpture Best Friends Forever in which Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein are holding hands is released into the public domain.
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