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{{trope}}
[[File:Public domain characters golden age.jpg|thumb|350px|link=http://www.undergroundinc.info/news/public-domain-captain-flash|A set of public domain heroes from [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]] -- and there's more where they came from.]]
{{quote|''[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/11p17 God bless the public domain.]''|''[[
A character that nobody owns anymore, or was never owned in the first place, that everybody wants to take a shot at writing.
Under U.S. law, works first published in 1922 or earlier are no longer subject to copyright. Before the 1970s, copyright was not automatic in the United States and most other countries, and it was possible for a copyright to lapse if not registered or renewed in a timely manner, so certain later works are public domain as well. In [[Europe]], the rule is that the author has to have been dead for 70 years. Under the Berne Convention, work-for-hire has a copyright term of 100 years from the date of publication. Additionally, the holder of a copyright may choose to release it prematurely into the [[Public Domain]].
Thanks to the trend of various changes in legislation, copyright terms can sometimes be cynically described as lasting at least X+20 years, where X is the number of years since the release of ''[[Steamboat Willie]]'', the first Mickey Mouse cartoon (this is not strictly correct as it was actually the ''third'' Mickey Mouse cartoon, but it was the first talkie and the first to be widely released). It is generally agreed that the most recent extension of American copyright
Given Congress' willingness to extend copyright duration any time Hollywood demands it, it is entirely possible
A distinction should be made between public domain ''characters'' and public domain ''works''; [[Bugs Bunny]] is a trademarked character and ''not'' in public domain, but his earliest individual cartoons are.
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It should be noted that, in general, a trademark is forever. As long as the holder of the trademark is creating some kind of "product" (media counts), and that they fulfill certain requirements (protecting the trademark is generally required), they can demand that the courts enforce the trademark. This is another reason why trademarks have become more common.
One interesting side-note to keep in mind is that there is a difference between ''copyright'' (the legal right to control the reproduction of a particular expression of an idea or concept) and ''trademark'' (a symbol, character or design which is intended to be emblematic of a particular product or organization and used to identify them in a kind of visual shorthand). Public domain generally deals with copyright
In the USA, the Supreme Court decision [
Of course, even if a character isn't in the Public Domain, a good writer can [[Writing Around Trademarks|probably find a way]] to get that character in by creating a [[Captain Ersatz]] or an [[Alternate Company Equivalent]], or by utilizing a [[Lawyer
A character can also fall into the public domain if it doesn't meet threshold or
Compare [[Historical Domain Character]], which are people from [[Real Life]]; and [[Literary Mash
Keep in mind that producers may arrange for a license to use the name or likeness of a character even if it's likely to be in the public domain, or even if the use would not normally be considered infringement if it were not.
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== [[Comic Books]], Comic Strips ==
* Many [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] comic book characters wound up falling into public domain because their original publishers either went out of business or failed to renew the copyrights. Most [[Fawcett Comics]] and [[Quality Comics]] characters fall into the latter category. With Quality Comics, [[DC Comics]] acquired the characters while they were still under copyright, but they allowed the characters that they weren't using to enter the public domain. Fawcett Comics licensed its characters to DC until it went out of business in 1980s and DC bought them outright, but, once again, it didn't renew copyrights for anyone but [[Captain Marvel]] and his supporting cast. A number of public domain characters were subsequently reused by more recent publishers:
** In the 1980s, [[Eclipse Comics]] revived [[Airboy]], a Hillman Comics character. The title's supporting cast and villains were often borrowed from ''Air Fighters Comics''/''Airboy Comics'', a title Airboy originally appeared in.
** Also in the 1980s, ACE Comics briefly revived Columbia Comic superheroes Skyman and the Face. The company also reprinted several Golden Age comics from various publishers. The company went bankrupt before their revival could get beyond the initial mini-series.
** In the early 1990s, Malibu Comics used Centaur Comics characters as the basis for "Protectors Universe," their first superhero line (not the be confused with Ultraverse, the superhero line that replaced it).
** In 1994, Roy Thomas used several public domain characters from several defunct comic companies in the ''Invaders'' mini-series, casting the characters as heroes who underwent a [[Face Heel Turn]]. He originally intended to use obscure [[Marvel Comics]] [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] characters, but he was overruled by his editor. One of those characters (Dr Nemesis) went on to play a supporting role in ''Uncanny X-Men.''
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** Dynamite Entertainment has used about any public domain superhero they could get their hands on in the pages of ''[[Project Superpowers]]''.
** AC Comics made a habit of using public domain characters both in new series and reprints of original stories. Unlike the previous examples, which focused on a specific company, AC Comics used any character that was available, including minor Fawcett and Quality characters.
*** Oddly, Dynamic Man used in ''The Twelve'' is ''not'' a public domain
** At around the same time as [[Project Superpowers]], [[Image Comics]] started the Next Issue Project. Unlike most of the above-mentioned projects, which updated the characters for modern sensibilities, the Next Issue Project is more of a [[Retraux]] [[Affectionate Parody]], with [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]]-style stories, issues the size of Golden Age comics rather than modern comics, and even vintage ads.
** Many of the Nedor characters (and quite a few characters from other publishers) are also being used in ''Heroes Inc'', a webcomic created by Scott Austin. The story takes place in an alternate reality where the allies of WWII lost the war. The Nedor character American Crusader is an aging hero collecting DNA from various heroes in an attempt to revive the Golden Age. Many changes have been made to the characters origin stories and appearance.
** The original version of Blue Beetle (created for Fox Features Syndicate) is public domain, but subsequent [[Charlton Comics]] (and, later DC Comics') revamps are
** Centaur's John Aman, AKA Amazing-Man, recently joined the supporting cast of Marvel's ''[[Immortal Iron Fist]]'' as {{spoiler|The Prince of Orphans}}, which is fitting since, according to Roy Thomas, Iron Fist's co-creator, Iron Fist was based on the Amazing Man.
* The comic-book superheroine Octobriana may or may not have been created for anti-Soviet underground comics anonymously circulated in the USSR during the Cold War. Regardless of the truth of her origins, however, she is still in the public domain.
* [[Jenny Everywhere]], the comic-book character, was explicitly ''created'' to serve this purpose. She's as close to public domain as modern copyright law permits of modern creations.
* [[Dave Sim]] has stated that upon his death, his [[Graphic Novel]] ''[[Cerebus the Aardvark]]'' will enter the public domain.
* ''[[Out of Print]]'' is a [[Web Comic]] focusing [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Superhero|Super Heroes]] and the humor of being
* ''[[Little Nemo]]'' (At least the character itself and the comic, not the movie.)
* The site ''[
* On September 15, 2023, [[Bill Willingham]] placed the characters of ''[[Fables]]'' into the Public Domain. Willingham's stories are still under copyright, but [https://billwillingham.substack.com/p/more-about-fables-in-the-public-domain the characters are available for use in any work that anybody cares to make].
== Film ==
* [[King Kong]], sort of. The full story is complicated. Read [[The Other Wiki]]'s take on it [
* Most of [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s films are public domain, as is his Tramp character.
* [[Charlie Chan]].
* ''[[
* Visit any Wal-Mart in the US or Canada and you'll find many DVDs on budget labels featuring famous movies and movie stars. This is due to a huge number of films falling out of copyright and going into public domain, either due to failure by the studio to put a copyright notice on the film in the first place, or a studio or other entity failing to renew copyright back when that was still required. Among the literally hundreds of examples of films that are public domain and thus fair game for anyone to release on home video are the classic MGM musicals ''Royal Wedding'' and ''Till the Clouds Roll By'', the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn film ''Charade'', the Jayne Mansfield film ''The Fat Spy'', Jane Russell's ''The Outlaw'', the [[Superman Theatrical Cartoons|Fleischer Superman cartoon shorts]] of the 1930s, and several Tarzan films. To name, literally, only a very few. Simply put, if you see the same film released by a half dozen different companies on Amazon or in a store, and it's not an "imported" bootleg, then odds are it's fallen into public domain.
** You don't even need to go to Wal-Mart. The Internet Archive isn't just the Wayback Machine; they have thousands of [https://archive.org/details/moviesandfilms public-domain movies available at the click of a mouse].
== Literature ==
* [[Dracula|Count Dracula]]. Bram Stoker's book was published in 1897.
* [[Frankenstein's Monster]]. Mary Shelley published her story of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature in 1818.
* [[Don Giovanni|Don Juan]]. The first recorded work about him, a play called ''The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest'' (in Spanish, ''El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''), was written by Tirso de Molina. The play was first published circa 1630, but may have been performed as much as fourteen years earlier.
* [[Robin Hood]]. "Robin Hood and the Monk," a ballad from the 1400s, is the first known text containing the character.
* The characters of [[
* The Martians from [[
* [[
* [[Sherlock Holmes]]
** Sherlock Holmes illustrates the differences in international copyright law. The first stories have never had copyright in the US. When ''[[Star Trek]]'' first included them, Paramount almost '''did''' get sued because they were [https://web.archive.org/web/20150206005319/http://www.sherlockian.net/acd/copyright.html still under copyright in the UK].
** The Doyle estate tried to claim Sherlock Holmes anyway, on the grounds that any new Holmes story is a derivative of the character's whole set of appearances, the last of which weren't public domain till 2023, and it is not possible to base a new story on just the public domain material. This went to court and their argument [http://free-sherlock.com was resoundingly rejected by the judge.] Other legal theories used to keep a deathgrip of the IP were that since Holmes overcomes some of his character flaws in the final (then not yet public domain) books, Holmes stories that had him do so or lacked them in the first place (misogyny being a much worse flaw in the modern era than Victorian England) had to be copyright infringement and, in the most bizarre theory, that Holmes only expresses a fondness for dogs in the final books, therefore any interest in a dog by Holmes was based on these final stories. These were also rejected.
* Many of the [[
** In addition, the anime series ''[[
** In an odd twist, ''[[Ace Attorney|The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles]]'', released in the west in 2021, would reuse the "Herlock Sholmes" name to avoid any possible issues with the nearly finished Doyle estate while still keeping the spirit of the public domain character.
* The first five books of [[
▲* Many of the [[Arsene Lupin]] stories are in the public domain in the United States, including the famous "crossovers" with Sherlock Holmes. At the time they were written Doyle put and end to Leblanc's efforts and the detective was forced to match wits with the [[Gentleman Thief]] under the pseudonyms "Herlock Sholmes" and "Holmlock Shears." Now that both characters are freely available US publishers tend to publish the stories the way they were intended with the two great literary characters intersecting as [[Worthy Opponent|Worthy Opponents]].
▲** In addition, the anime series ''[[Lupin III (Manga)|Lupin III]]'', which focused on Lupin's grandson, can now be released under its original title outside of Japan; previously, the character was called "Rupan" or "The Wolf" in English-speaking countries.
▲* The first five books of [[Edgar Rice Burroughs (Creator)|Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' Mars series, where [[John Carter of Mars]] appeared, were published before 1923 and are out of copyright in the USA.
* Likewise, the first eight books of Burroughs' most famous creation, [[Tarzan]], are public domain in the United States; however, Disney has tried to claim trademark rights, at least in Denmark. [http://www.erblist.com/erbmania/trademark.html The Burroughs corporation beat them to it]. Burroughs also co-owns the copyright in the Disney Tarzan film.
* ''[[
* Several of [[
** Some research has suggested that later Lovecraft stories, produced during the time when copyright had to be renewed, were not renewed, making more characters out of copyright; this hasn't yet been tested in court. [[The Other Wiki]] has some information [
*** Hmm... Lovecraft's later works are copyright of Arkham House, a publishing company started by Lovecraft's contemporaries August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. D&D tried to integrate the Cthulhu mythos and was almost sued by a rival company Arkham had sold the rights to... it's complicated.
** Additionally, ''all'' of Lovecraft's works became public domain in the European Union on January 1, 2008.
* Mowgli and other characters from [[
** Kipling's works originally entered the public domain in 1986, 50 years after his death. When this was extended to 70 years his works went back ''into'' copyright until 2006.
* [[Treasure Island|Long John Silver]] and associates.
* [[
* [[Zorro]] ''should'' be public domain, since his first story was 1919 and he appeared in a silent film in 1920, but in 2005 Sony sent a cease-and-desist to a company, Sobini, which wanted to make a Zorro movie. Sobini sued Sony in 2005 to try to get a decision that Sobini could use the character, but the outcome of this suit, if any, remains unreported. What news can be found is confusing and contradictory (such as news articles claiming that Sobini "acquired the rights" to the public domain 1919 story).
** [http://www.zorro.com/about.html Zorro Productions, Inc.] claims that it "controls the worldwide trademarks and copyrights in the name, visual likeness and the character of Zorro."
** In Sony Pictures Entertainment v. FIREWORKS ENTER. GROUP (2001) the court ruled that "the copyrights in "The Curse of Capistrano" and "The Mark of Zorro" lapsed in 1995 or before, the character Zorro has been in the public domain."
* The first two [[
* Any character from traditional [[Fairy Tale|fairy tales]], including those of:
** [[
** [[
** [[The Brothers Grimm (
* [[Fu Manchu]].
** The first three Fu Manchu books were published prior to 1922 and are public domain in the USA; however, some characters are not public domain since they were introduced later, particularly his daughter Fah Lo Suee, who was only named in a later book. This has caused problems for [[Marvel Comics]], who cannot reprint ''Master of Kung Fu'', which uses not only Fu Manchu but other characters from the series. For instance, the martial arts hero Shang-Chi is a Marvel character and the son of Fu Manchu. Many stories refer to Shang's father being a Chinese crimelord but he is never seen or mentioned by name. Also, Fu Manchu is not in the public domain in Europe (Rohmer died in 1959), and Alan Moore could not name him in ''[[League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]''.
** Similarly, it is strongly intimated in the novelization of ''[[The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension]]'' that Hanoi Xan, the [[He Who Must Not Be Seen|unseen]] [[Big Bad]] who was completely edited out of the movie, is in fact Fu Manchu, but never explicitly stated.
* [[Mother Goose]] characters, like Humpty Dumpty, Old King Cole, and Mother Goose.
* Alice and other characters from ''[[
** One of [[
* [[
* [[Peter Pan]]
** Except in the United Kingdom, as it is one of the few fictional works to have a (limited) perpetual copyright, owned by the Great Ormond Street Hospital. This was gifted to them by Barrie himself in his will and confirmed by an Act of Parliament. Because of this, ''Peter Pan'' will never be in the public domain in the UK for as long as the hospital exists.
* [[
* The characters of ''[[
** Scheherazade
** [[Aladdin (
** [[
** [[Ali Baba and
* [[The Phantom of the Opera]], as well as the two other sides of his [[Triang Relations|love triangle]].
* Sun Wukong/Son Goku from ''[[Journey to
** Not to be confused with the Son Goku from [[Saiyuki|Gensomaden Saiyuki]], [[Patalliro|Patalliro Saiyuki]], [[Gokudo]]...
* [[The Picture of Dorian Gray|Dorian Gray]], and in fact all of Wilde's works.
* [[Conan the Barbarian]] is public domain in the United Kingdom, and everywhere in the EU, since January 2007 (70 years after the death of [[Robert E. Howard
* [[Carnacki, the Ghost
* [[Sweeney Todd]]. He first appeared in a story called ''The String of Pearls: A Romance'', which was serially published from 1846 to 1847.
* All the works of [[
* The first [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel, ''Whose Body?'' (1923), is in the public domain in the US and Canada, but not in the UK or Europe.
* Most, if not all, of [[
* All the books featured in the pioneering e-book endeavor
* Prester John <ref>Prester John and his kingdom originally appeared in a 12th-century European propaganda yarn. Which, while ludicrous, turned out to be [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]] -- loosely enough to rip off Marco Polo and Kuzma Indikoplav for out-of-place embellishments, and true enough to accidentally predict the actual "Yellow Crusade" in XIII century.</ref> and John Mandeville in ''[[A Dirge for Prester John]]''.
* As of 2022 ''[[Winnie-the-Pooh (book)|Winnie-the-Pooh]]'' is public domain, but ''not'' his red shirt (Disney created and owns that) or Tigger (who was introduced in the sequel and not public domain till 2024). The bear's entry into the public domain would be exploited by horror film ''[[Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey]]'', which used the shock value of turning a piece of children's media into a [[Slasher Movie]] to get maximum publicity. This worked out, and what was initially nearly in [[No Budget]] territory attracted mass media attention, leading to an increased budget for further shooting and post-production.
== Live Action TV ==
* Just as with films (see above), there are many American-produced TV series that have fallen into public domain. Or, as the case may be, only selected episodes have. Examples include ''[[Dragnet]]'', ''[[Bonanza]]'', many early episode of ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]'', ''[[
** The Internet Archive has a collection of [https://archive.org/details/television public-domain TV shows and commercials available for download].
== Radio ==
* [https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio Old Time Radio] is one of the Internet Archive's collections of works that have fallen into the public domain. Some of the shows went on the live-action TV, others are original.
== Religion, Folklore, & Mythology ==
* Characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and literature, such as [[Classical Mythology/Characters|Hercules]], [[The Iliad
* [[Enigmatic Empowering Entity|The Lady of the Lake]]
* [[God]]. In fact, pretty much all figures from religions that were founded before the 20th century. Still would probably be a bad idea to say that God looks shockingly like [[Morgan Freeman]], or [[George Burns]]. Others include:
** [[Jesus]]
** [[Archangel Gabriel]]
** [[
** [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]]
** [[The Three Wise Men]]
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** Moses
** King David
** Ahura
* [[The Grim Reaper]]
** [[Shinigami]]
* [[Santa Claus]], unless [[You Mean "Xmas"]]
** [[Mrs. Claus]]
* [[The Big Bad Wolf]]
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== Web Original ==
* The blog-novel ''[[Flyover City]]!'' uses the pulp novel / comic book hero Green Lama as [[Mr. Exposition]] and [[Cynical Mentor]].
* The fears of ''[[The Fear Mythos]]''
* In nature all creepypasta is public domain.
* The author of the web novel ''[http:
* All the characters from ''[[Morenatsu]]''.
== Western Animation ==
* [[Popeye]] entered the public domain in Europe as of 2009.
** And while it'll be quite a few years before he goes public domain in the US, all of the original Fleischer cartoon serials have entered the public domain, as well as some of the later Famous Studios shorts.
** In addition, Popeye is often the source of [[Lawyer
** Ironically, Disney could not clear the rights in time to have Popeye appear in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''. This, after they co-produced [[The Movie]] of [[Popeye]] with Paramount.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Narrative Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Public Domain
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