Title 17 of the United States Code states that “in the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication.” (Or 120 years after its creation, whichever comes first). After that, it’s offered up to the people, who do the diligent work of turning it into various horror games.
The pool of public domain options grows with each New Year’s Day, when a fresh batch of copyrights evaporates. There are some caveats, and copyright law is distinct from trademark law; you can read more about that and see a list of notable works entering the public domain this year on the Duke Law website.
This year, the earliest versions of Betty Boop, Blondie, nine Mickey Mouse cartoons, and the first week of the Mickey Mouse comic strip are all entering the public domain. There’s also William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” the 1930 film “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and numerous other works of art and pop culture.
I want to find this news delightfully novel—the public domain is the reason we have the celebrated Lies of P and American McGee’s Alice—but creative leaps like those feel a mite rare compared to the likes of Pooh: Blood and Honey. I’m still waiting to hear wind of anything like the Sailor Man soulslike PC Gamer’s Lincoln Carpenter dreamed up at the beginning of last year, when E.C. Segar’s Popeye and Hergé’s Tintin entered the public domain. Are we in for a payload of indie comic strip point-and-clicks starring Betty Boop and Dagwood? Maybe, but I’m guessing we’ll have to wait for the novelty of subversive schlock retoolings to wear off first.
There are also those caveats I mentioned earlier. Even if you wanted to make a videogame starring the 1930 version of Betty Boop, you technically may still run afoul of copyright law by using certain design features from later versions of the character. It’d be easy to do considering she used to have long, floppy dog ears for some reason.
That said, the Duke Law post I mentioned contends Fleischer Studios can’t copyright “trivial” or “stereotypical modifications” such as “replacing the dog ears with human ones, dressing her in standard attire for a cabaret performer or homemaker, adding a Rosie the Riveter bandana, or modulating her voice to reflect newer singing styles.” As you might expect, it’s a gray area; the post qualifies its point, stating “reasonable people could disagree on exactly where the line is to be drawn.”
Perhaps I’m just being impatient. Lies of P released in 2023, several decades after Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio” entered the public domain. However long it takes to get an award-winning Betty Boop game, whatever that looks like, I won’t mind if we skip the Twitch stream-ready horror phase altogether.
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