The first of each year marks Public Domain Day, the day when a new batch of copyrighted creative works enter the public domain. The class of 2025 features literary classics such as William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own; musical compositions such as Singin’ in the Rain and Tiptoe through the Tulips; works of art including Salvador Dali’s Illumined Pleasures; and the first versions of familiar cartoon characters, including everyone’s favorite spinach-eating sailor.

Celebrate Public Domain Day by learning about the opportunities the public domain provides for the free sharing and adapting of treasured works, and for replicating and preserving lesser-known works, with the resources in this post.