Works in the public domain may be used and built upon, free from permissions or fees. Characters such as “The Lion King” and “Mary Poppins” live in the public domain, and recently have been re-imagined and remastered to fit new creative visions. Cecil B.
No permission is needed to copy or use public domain works. A work is generally considered to be within the public domain if it is ineligible for copyright protection or its copyright has expired. Public domain works can serve as the foundation for new creative works and can be quoted extensively.
For more than 20 years, Disney periodically made efforts to convince Travers to allow him to make a Poppins film, which included making visits to Travers' home in Chelsea, London. He finally succeeded in 1961 although Travers demanded and obtained script approval rights.
In the United States, the following rules apply: Anything (other than sound recordings) copyrighted prior to 1928 is in the public domain. (Practically speaking, this includes anything published prior to 1928, since publication without copyright put the work straight into the public domain.
Copyright to the Shrek movie franchise is owned by DreamWorks animation (Universal Pictures). Copyright for the comedy fantasy picture book, published in 1990 by American book writer and cartoonist William Steig, will be in the public domain in 2073 (Steiger died in 2003).
Nowadays, “The Little Prince” book is in the public domain in most countries in the world (except France and the United States, in particular), and its fame has exploded along with the number of editions and translations published in these countries.
According to US copyright law, the rights for a character expire 95 years after the publication of the original work. Disney will lose the Mickey Mouse copyright for Steamboat Willie in 2024, since the short animated film was produced and distributed in 1928.
Shakespeare works are in the domain of the public. They are there for all of us to use, share, enjoy, build upon, be inspired by, and perform. Here are some other examples of work in the Public Domain.
And since Shakespeare and Austen's works are in the public domain, all of these remakes are legal. Books, settings, characters, and stories in the public domain are a rich source of material for writers, as they should be. When a classic tale is retold, writers explore timeless yearnings and connect us to our past.
Is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the public domain?
The children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum in 1900 is in the public domain. This follows the general rule that any work published before 1923 is in the public domain.
But there are limits to what someone can do with public domain characters. For one thing, the character can only be used as it existed 95 years earlier. Let's take Superman, for example, who first appeared in DC's Action Comics #1 in 1938 and enters the public domain in 2033.
He's public domain. Popeye's image now belongs to the world. There are no longer royalties to pay because his creator, Elzie Segar, died in 1939, and in much of the world, copyright expires 70 years after the creator's death.
Copyright law in the United States dictates that works published after the 95th year of publication will no longer be affected by copyright. This means that characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Mickey Mouse, Captain America, and Batman will be entering the public domain within the next 15 years.
After years of contact, which included visits to Travers at her home in London, Walt Disney obtained the rights and the film Mary Poppins premiered in 1964. In 2004, a stage musical adaptation of the books and the film opened in the West End; it premiered on Broadway in 2006.
Travers was notoriously wary of signing over the rights to her famous children's character, Mary Poppins, to Walt Disney. In fact, an entire movie—2013's Saving Mr. Banks—was made about Disney's overtures to the author. But eventually, as we now know, Travers caved.
Travers, Disney devoted two decades to bring the nanny that is "practically perfect in every way" to the silver screen. In the early 1940s, Walt Disney made his daughter Diane a promise: he would adapt her favorite 1934 children's book, British author P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins, into a big-screen masterpiece.
