The first Betty Boop cartoons from 1930’s “Dizzy Dishes” and Blondie from Chic Young’s comic strip are now in the public domain in the U.S. after 95 years of copyright protection. People can now freely use, change, and reuse these 1930 versions in new movies, art, and media without asking for permission or paying for it. This is a big change in culture, along with other entries like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.
Fleischer Studios made Betty Boop, who was partly based on the song “Boop-Oop-a-Doop Girl” by Helen Kane. She started out as a dog-like character and then became the famous flapper. Blondie Boopadoop, the first carefree flapper in Chic Young’s strip, later married Dagwood Bumstead and moved on to domestic comedy, which is still going strong today. Both are examples of flapper culture from the 1930s, when the Great Depression and the fragile state of the world between the wars were going on.
The 1930 versions are in the public domain for creative works like movies, but Fleischer Productions owns the trademarks on Betty Boop, so later versions can’t be sold freely, just like Disney’s Mickey Mouse protections. Later character developments will stay copyrighted until their terms are up. This difference gives artists freedom while protecting brand names.
The first four Nancy Drew books, Agatha Christie’s “The Murder at the Vicarage,” Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” and movies like “All Quiet on the Western Front” are now in the public domain. You can also listen to songs from recordings made in 1925, like “The St. Louis Blues” by Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong. Jennifer Jenkins of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain says that this is a “big year” for well-known culture.
