عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Tintin, Popeye, Hemingway Among US Copyrights Expiring in 2025

File photo: Thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday as copyrights expire, including Tintin. AFP
File photo: Thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday as copyrights expire, including Tintin. AFP
TT
TT

Tintin, Popeye, Hemingway Among US Copyrights Expiring in 2025

File photo: Thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday as copyrights expire, including Tintin. AFP
File photo: Thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday as copyrights expire, including Tintin. AFP

From "A Farewell to Arms" to the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor, thousands of artistic works will enter the public domain in the United States on Wednesday.

US copyright law expires after 95 years for books, films and other works of art, while sound recordings from 1924 will also be copyright-free.

By entering the public domain, the pieces can be copied, shared, reproduced or adapted by anyone without paying the rights owner, AFP reported.

This year's crop includes internationally recognized figures such as the comic character Tintin, who made his debut in a Belgian newspaper in 1929, and Popeye the Sailor, created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar.

Every December, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain publishes a list of the cultural works that lose their copyright in the new year.

The center, part of the Duke University School of Law in the southeastern US state of North Carolina, makes the list available on its website for anyone to peruse.

"In past years we have celebrated an exciting cast of public domain characters: the original Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh, and the final iterations of Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories," center director Jennifer Jenkins wrote on its website.

"In 2025 copyright expires over more aspects of Mickey from his 1929 incarnations, along with the initial versions of Popeye and Tintin."

Among the literary works entering the US public domain on January 1 are the novels "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner, "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway, "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf and the first English translation of "All Quiet on the Western Front" by the German author Erich Maria Remarque.

Films that will be in the public domain include "Blackmail," directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and "The Black Watch," the first sound film by Oscar-winning director John Ford.

Musical compositions published in 1929, such as "Bolero" by French composer Maurice Ravel and "An American in Paris" by George Gershwin, will lose their copyrights, though only recordings from 1924 or earlier will be in the public domain.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor, Who Devoted His Life for Peace, Dies at 93

Shigemi Fukahori is interviewed at the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on July 29, 2020. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
Shigemi Fukahori is interviewed at the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on July 29, 2020. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
TT
TT

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor, Who Devoted His Life for Peace, Dies at 93

Shigemi Fukahori is interviewed at the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on July 29, 2020. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
Shigemi Fukahori is interviewed at the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on July 29, 2020. (Kyodo News via AP, File)

Shigemi Fukahori, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, who devoted his life to advocating for peace has died. He was 93.

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on Jan. 3, the Urakami Catholic Church, where he prayed almost daily until last year, said on Sunday. Local media reported he died of old age.

The church, located about 500 meters from ground zero and near the Nagasaki Peace Park, is widely seen as a symbol of hope and peace, as its bell tower and some statues and survived the nuclear bombing.

Fukahori was only 14 when the US dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family. That came three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people. Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II and the country's nearly half-century of aggression across Asia.

Fukahori, who worked at a shipyard about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from where the bomb dropped, couldn’t talk about what happened for years, not only because of the painful memories but also how powerless he felt then.

About 15 years ago, he became more outspoken after encountering, during a visit to Spain, a man who experienced the bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War when he was also 14 years old. The shared experience helped Fukahori open up.

“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” Fukahori told Japan’s national broadcaster NHK in 2019.

He often addressed students, hoping they take on what he called “the baton of peace,” in reference to his advocacy.

When Pope Francis visited Nagasaki in 2019, Fukahori was the one who handed him a wreath of white flowers. The following year, Fukahori represented the bomb victims at a ceremony, making his “pledge for peace,” saying: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.”

A wake is scheduled for Sunday, and funeral services on Monday at Urakami Church, where his daughter will represent the family.