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Public Domain Character - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Jun 14 2007

Public Domain Character (trope)

The Count has had many faces, some friendlier than others.note 

"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 before 1929 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 yearsnote . The longest copyright term in the world is that of Mexico, in which since 2003, works do not enter the public domain until the author has been dead for 100 years.note  France also has 6 to 8-year copyright extensions for musical works published before 1920 and/or 1947, and a 30-year copyright extension for authors who died while serving during World Wars I and II, such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Many countries also follow the "rule of the shorter term", where if a work is in the public domain in its country of origin, it is also public domain in the other country.

Additionally, the copyright holder may choose to release a work prematurely into the Public Domain.

Most notably, the authors only have to be dead for 50 years for their works to enter the public domain in New Zealand—meaning that those of C. S. Lewis and Ian Fleming (died in 1963 and 1964) are no longer under copyright in that country. Canada is a party to a 2018 trade agreement that uses a minimum life-plus-70 term, and accordingly changed its law to that effect in 2022. However, this change was not made retroactive, meaning that the works of any author who died before 1972 (including Lewis and Fleming) are PD in Canada. Mexico is also a party to that agreement, in which its "life plus 100" term is preserved. In Australia, the work of any author who died before 1955 is public domain; the country changed from a "life plus 50" term to "life plus 70" in 2004, but also did not make the change retroactive. Similarly, in Japan, which changed from "life plus 50" to "life plus 70" in 2018 and didn't make this change retroactive, the work of any author who died before 1968 is public domain.

Compare Historical Domain Character, which are people from Real Life; and Literary Mash-Ups, in which entire public domain works are... erm, "improved". Also be wary of examples in general found in the wild as, despite all pretenses, many people don't know much about copyright law in general, and those that do, certainly don't know its many intricacies and legal interpretations. Further, copyright holders often give the impression that they have more extensive rights than they really do (for example, implying that an entire series is copyrighted when some of it might be public domain). And indeed, in certain instances, people don't often realize the history of certain characters, resulting in Reality Is Unrealistic. See Santa Claus.

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. An example regarding trademarks is the agreement between Conan O'Brien's producers and the owner of the Conan the Barbarian literary estate allowing Conan to use his first name as the title of his talk show. TBS apparently thought it prudent to get the agreement even though it's unlikely the literary estate would be so foolhardy as to sue; the defense of even a frivolous lawsuit would run to many times the cost of such an agreement.

See also Public Domain Artifact for when this trope is focused on different artifacts and objects also under Public Domain, Landmark of Lore for locations used in a similar way, and Public Domain Canon Welding when this is done with entire settings.

Wikipedia has a handy chart, though shorter than this page, which lists some public domain characters and some characters that will be free in the future here.

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List of common public domain characters

Mythology & Religion 

Abrahamic Mythology

Arthurian Legend

Christmas Folklore

Greco-Roman Mythology

Other Folktales and Legends

Literature 

Arabian Nights

The Brothers Grimm

Charles Perrault

Other Fairy Tales

Other Literature

  • The Ancient Mariner
  • Arsène Lupin in all countries outside the US, as author Maurice Leblanc died in 1941.note  In the US, any element of the series introduced before 1929. Lupin III could be named "Lupin" only in Japan until 2012.
  • Beowulf
  • Carmilla
  • Cthulhu, Herbert West, and many other characters of H. P. Lovecraft. Outside of the United States all his works are public domain, but his later works (after 1929) are in a grey area in the United States, where it's not known for sure if his stories were published with copyright notice, and if they were whether they were renewed or not.note 
  • Don Quixote
  • Dracula
  • Frankenstein — Frankenstein's Monster and Victor Frankenstein
  • Fu Manchu, in countries where the copyright term is "Life plus 60" or lower, plus any countries where the work of creators who died before 1960 is PD.note  In the US, any element of the series introduced before 1929. See the "Other public domain characters: Literature" folder for more details.
  • The Invisible Man
  • Heidi
  • Jekyll & Hyde
  • John Carter in countries with life plus 70 or lower, plus any countries where the work of creators who died before 1951 is PD.note  In the US, any element of the series introduced before 1929. However, not PD yet in Spain, which was "life plus 80" until 1987; since Edgar Rice Burroughs died in 1950, his works won't be PD there until 2031.
  • Kalevipoeg
  • Peter Pan, but only outside of the United Kingdom. See the "Other public domain characters: Literature" folder for more details.
  • Pinocchio
  • Reynard the Fox
  • Rip Van Winkle
  • Robinson Crusoe
  • Sennentuntschi
  • Sherlock Holmes
  • Sweeney Todd
  • Tarzan — since Tarzan, like John Carter, was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, his copyright status is the same as that of John Carter. However, the trademark is another story. See "Other public domain characters: Literature".
  • Sítio do Picapau Amarelo, in countries with life plus 70 or lower, as the author died in 1948. Also PD in countries where the work of authors who died before 1949 is PD.note  In the US, any element of the series introduced before 1929.
  • Zorro, in countries with life plus 60 or lower, plus any countries where the work of creators who died before 1959 is PD. (Among these: Canada, Japan, and NZ.) In the US, any element of the series introduced before 1929. See "Other public domain characters: Literature".
  • Winnie-the-Pooh and Friends, except for the ones made by Disney.

Other 

Comic Characters

Films — Live-Action

Internet

Theatre

Western Animation

Other public domain characters in media

Advertising 

Please note: A character may be in the public domain, but still trademarked, especially if it's an advertising mascot.

Anime & Manga 

  • Generally speaking, characters from every manga and anime created before World War II (at least the ones before 1930), including the Samurai from Namakura Gatana, Yutaka Asō's Nonkina Tōsan (Carefree Dad) and his partner Neighbor Taishō, and Mukuzo Imokawa from Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki (The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa).
  • Saito Eijirou and the rest of characters from Say Hello to Black Jack (not to be confused with Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack, though the former's title pays homage to the latter), one of the very rare instances of contemporary manga characters stepping into the public domain. The reason for this is that its creator, Shūhō Satō, canceled his contract with Kodansha in April 2012, and warned that any remaining copies in bookstores were "illegal publications". Satō then began allowing free secondary use of the title, allowing people to "use the original work to create editions in foreign languages, films, applications, anime, and more without any royalty payments", thus placing the series into the public domain.
  • Characters from some Chinese and South Korean animesque features that fell into the public domain, such as Space Transformers, Phoenix King and The Proud General. MyAnimeList files each of these films in the "Public Domain" club.

Comic Books 

Comic Strips 

  • Ally Sloper
  • Annie, Sandy and Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks
  • Barney Google
  • Bécassine
  • Billy Bounce
  • Buck Rogers, although he didn't actually become a spacefarer until 1930.
  • Buster Brown
  • Ella Cinders
  • Everett True
  • Fritzi Ritz
  • Ginger Meggs
  • Gnorm Gnat and most of the Jon comic strips made by Jim Davis, since they were released without a copyright notice, as copyrights were required to be written down on a work prior to 1977. The Jon comics, of course, also include the oldest version of Garfield.note 
  • Happy Hooligan
  • Harold Teen
  • Jiggs and Maggie
  • The Katzenjammer Kids
  • Krazy Kat (as well as all original strips) became public domain in most countries (especially Europe, apart from Spain where he became PD in 2025) in 2015, as the strip's author George Herriman died in 1944. Due to differing copyright laws, only pre-1930 elements of Krazy Kat are PD in the US.
  • Little Nemo — at least the character itself and the comic as well as the first film, not the later films.
  • Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: Besides characters debuting in cartoons (Mickey, Minnie, Clarabelle, Horace, Pete), there's also Sylvester Shyster, Mr. Slicker, Butch and Minnie Mouse's uncle Mortimer and her father (Marcus) and mother.
  • Mr. Jack and his supporting cast.
  • Mutt and Jeff
  • Pogo Possum and Albert Alligator as they appeared in Animal Comics.
  • Popeye:
    • The character of Popeye (though not the films, TV shows, and other media based on him) became public domain in the US in 2025, and in almost all of the EU in 2009, since the original creator, Elzie Segar, died in 1938. Spain had to wait until 2019. Popeye became PD even earlier in Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and NZ, all of which used "life plus 50" (or, in the case of Mexico, life plus 30). While Australia, Japan, and Mexico later extended their terms, those changes weren't made retroactive; Canada's change to "life plus 70" didn't occur until more than 80 years after Segar's death. When Popeye first appeared in the Thimble Theatre comic strip (later renamed for Popeye) in January 1929, Segar was employed by the strip's owner, King Features Syndicate. As a result, Popeye is treated as a "work for hire" under US copyright law, and was protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. In addition, Popeye is often the source of Lawyer-Friendly Cameo appearances — thinly-veiled muscular sailors have appeared in both DC and Marvel comics. 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.
    • And while we'll have to wait some time for characters like Wimpy and Bluto, all of the original Fleischer cartoon serials have entered the public domain, as well as some of the later Famous Studios shorts. Some of them even feature many Bluto-inspired characters, such as the one first seen in Barbecue for Two (nicknamed "Junior" by Popeye, named "Chauncy" in the storyboards), Sindbad as depicted in Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor, and Abu Hassan from Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves.
    • On the other hand, Popeye's love interest Olive Oyl, also created by Segar for Thimble Theatre, entered the public domain in the US in 1995 — 14 years (24 in Spain) before she entered the public domain in Europe. She debuted with the comic strip in December 1919, a little more than 9 years before the Popeye character. Under US copyright law at that time, copyrights lasted a maximum of 75 years, whether or not they were works for hire. Although the US later passed a copyright term extension, it specifically refused to restore copyright for works whose terms had ended. That being said, however, only pre-1930 elements of Olive Oyl are public domain in the US.
  • Rupert Bear
  • Walt and Skeezix
  • Wash Tubbs
  • Winnie Winkle.
  • The Yellow Kid first appeared in 1895.

Films — Live-Action 

  • See Public Domain Feature Films for more.
  • King Kong, sort of. But It's a Long Story. Read The Other Wiki's take on it here. Put shortly, while the films are still copyrighted, the novelization of the first film appeared before the film itself, and since the novelization didn't have its copyright renewed, and that's where Kong debuted, that means Kong is in public domain.
  • Similar to Kong, Gorgo and Konga, since the comic book adaptations appeared before the films, and the comics didn't have have their copyright renewed
  • Andy Hardy (first appeared in the play Skidding 1928, first film appearance in A Family Affair 1937)
  • Most of Charlie Chaplin's films are public domain, as is his Tramp character.
  • Laurel and Hardy.
  • Most of Buster Keaton’s films have entered the public domain including The General (1926).
  • Most of Harold Lloyd’s films have entered the public domain including his popular character The Kid/Harold featured in films such as The Freshman and The Kid Brother.
  • Charlie Chan.
  • Visit any Walmart 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. 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 Fleischer Superman cartoon shorts of the 1940s, and several Tarzan films. To name 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.
  • Most of the old movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 are in public domain, which is how they were easily used on the show.
  • There was a book published in the 1970s called "50,000 motion pictures in the public domain" which took all of the copyright registrations for films starting around 1912 up through about 1975 or so, and dropped the ones for which copyright renewals were made. While a lot of these films either no longer exist—Irving Thalberg, as head of MGM, had a lot of films rendered (melted down) to recover their silver content—or have been lost, and some may be based on scripts or books that are still copyrighted, there are still a lot of films that are out of copyright because of failure to renew back when renewals were mandatory.
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968) technically never was properly under U.S. copyright, due to an editing-room flub that removed the film's copyright label along with its original Night of the Flesh-Eaters title. This opened the door for Romero-style zombies to become as much of a stock horror monster as vampires or werewolves.
  • Seymour, Audrey II, and the others from The Little Shop of Horrors. But only the versions of them from the 1960 film, and not the musical based off of it or the second movie based off the musical.
  • The zombie-using aliens and others from Plan 9 from Outer Space.
  • Pitch the demon, Lupita, Santa's helpers, and the depictions of Merlin and Santa himself from Santa Claus (1959).
  • Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: The emotionally-stunted green Martians.
  • Bull Weed from Underworld (1927), one of the first gangster films.
  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Doctor Caligari, Cesare, and the rest.
  • Metropolis: The Machine Man, Freder, Rotwang, and all the other inhabitants of Metropolis.
  • Alice While, Frank Webber and the others from Blackmail (1929).
  • Universal Horror:
    • In addition to his literary version (see the Literature section), the 1925 version of the Phantom of the Opera and related characters. The 1925 film has actually been PD in the US since 1954 because Universal failed to renew the copyright back when that was required.
    • Ditto for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), right down to Universal failing to renew copyright, meaning that it's been PD in the US since 1952.
    • The Cat and the Canary had also notably lapsed back in 1955 as Universal had failed to renew its rights, making it public domain in the US.
    • The Man Who Laughs entered the public domain in 2024 in the US, with the titular character having notably served as the visual inspiration for the DC Comics supervillain The Joker.
  • Nosferatu: Count Orlok.
  • Vietnam veteran Andy Crocker of The Ballad of Andy Crocker.
  • The Giant Gila Monster.
  • McLintock and the others from, well, McLintock!
  • Esther, Norman, and the others from A Star Is Born (1937). (But only the original, none of the remakes.)
  • Rin Tin Tin.
  • Torgo, the Master and Manos
  • Walter Paisley who would go on to become a recurring character for Dick Miller in numerous Corman films and even a few of Joe Dante’s movies.
  • The Wasp Woman

Mythology & Religion 

Literature 

Live-Action TV 

  • Just as with films (see above), there are many American-produced TV series that have fallen into the public domain. Or, as the case may be, only selected episodes have. Examples include the '50s Dragnet series, Bonanza, many early episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction (most of its first season, in fact), and about a dozen episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show. In some cases, DVD and VHS releases of these episodes have to be re-edited to remove elements that are still in copyright, such as theme music.
  • Most of the episodes of One Step Beyond (1959), a supernatural anthology predecessor to such shows as The Twilight Zone (1959) and The Outer Limits (1963). The show purports to be based on real-life events, and itself often uses Historical Domain Characters.
  • Captain Z-Ro, a reclusive scientist that would use his ZX-99 machine to observe various points in time, and, when necessary, send his assistant Jet back in time to make sure that history unfolded according to how it was originally recorded.

Roleplay 

  • Darwin's Soldiers author LettuceBacon&Tomato explicitly released every one of his characters except Dr. Shelton into the public domain. This presumably includes Shelton's anti-matter duplicate who possesses all of the original's memories, meaning it'd be quite easy to bypass the actual Shelton's copyright.

Video Games 

  • Abuse: Nick Vrenna might be in the public domain, or at least his likeness, given that the developers released the game's source code and shareware data (which includes art assets) into the public domain, excluding the sound effects due to separate ownership. However, Crack dot Com retains ownership of the Abuse trademark, and there is no specific information indicating whether his name and/or likeness are trademarked or not, so it's advisable to seek legal counsel before using the character or his name in any project.
  • Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning: Null. As a meta joke nonetheless. After his defeat in the Classic Remastered version of the game, he disappears, with Word of God stating that there's nothing stopping him from appearing in other works due to in-universe circumstances. While Basically Games technically owns the rights to the character, they put him into the public domain just in case he pops up in somebody else's works and refuses to leave.
  • All of the characters featured in the ZX Spectrum compilation game Don't Buy Thisnote , as a massive Take That! from the publisher to each of the games' developers, nonetheless. The manual for the game itself says that "Firebird disowns all copyright in this product. It may be copied, lent, hired or transmitted at will", and they did this as a humorous commercial move and even encouraged consumers to pirate it (though considering the game lacks a copyright, it's technically not pirating anymore).
  • Any original character from Friday Night Funkin' prior to 2023, including Boyfriend, Girlfriend and Daddy Dearest. The game's open-source licensing originally extended to the game's characters as well, but in 2023 ninjamuffin99 changed the terms so that it only applies to the game code following a string of low quality unauthorized merchandise popping up on the market. That said, while any character introduced after the change is not free to use, the older characters might be due to the Apache license being unrevokeable.
  • Grues are... an interesting example. The first ever race of creatures to be called "grues" were predatory human-bat hybrids found in Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. The term was then borrowed and featured in the Zork series as monstrous predators who dwell in the dark. Neither of them are in public domain, but the reason why Zork borrowed the term "grue" in the first place is because the word itself is pretty oldnote , not to mention the concept of monsters hunting unfortunate souls in the darkness is hardly new. This explains why there are a lot of works that feature man-eating creatures of the night and call them "grues".
  • Surprisingly enough, MissingNo., the Glitch Pokémon from Pokémon Red and Blue (yeah, seriously!), except in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. In fact, Wikimedia Commons has an entire section for all of its data in the game, which is all free to use. The reason for this is that this is the only "character" in the entire game not to be made by the programmers at Game Freak or Nintendo, but rather by the game itself, making it AI generated and therefore public domain anywhere but in those aformentioned countries. This is, of course, as long as you don't make it a Pokémon or associate it to Game Freak or Nintendo in any way. Also keep in mind that this only applies to its visuals. Any other data such as fonts or its "cry" (which is that of a male Nidoran) is undoubtedly copyrighted. These rules also apply to all of the other glitch Pokémon in the games whose sprites and stats consist of just garbage data, which is in fact a surprisingly large amount of them. Not all of them have coherent cries either, some of them are just garbage noises.

Visual Novel 

  • All of the characters from Morenatsu were designed anonymously by different artists during early development on 2Chan, leading them to be part of the public domain.

Webcomics 

  • Lightbringer: All of the characters and stories in the series were released into the public domain by its creator, Linkara on September 20, 2013.
  • Jenny Everywhere, the comic-book character, was explicitly created to serve this purpose. She's not so much public domain but as open source as modern copyright law permits of modern creations.
  • Jack author David Hopkins released all of the characters he created into the public domain as of January 16, 2021. This, however, does not apply to characters owned by others who have appeared in the comic, such as Skye Bluedeer and Reckonin.

Web Original 

  • The creator of Crossover Chaos has explicitly stated (quite a few times, in fact) that he released all of the original characters and concepts from the fanfic into the public domain, like Valo and Ekaitz Gemclaw, as well as some characters that originated outside but have Crossover Chaos versions (Chapstick, Sapphi and Dodger).
  • The Free Universe collects many public domain heroes and characters and sets up templates for modern writers to use them.
  • The fears of The Fear Mythos (including The Rake), except the Slender Man. See here for more details. In general, a lot of creepypastas and other internet horror characters tend to have murky or no licensing, particularly older works when authors rarely put any thought into it.
  • The entire point of Fan Pro. All of the characters are public domain, and there's no canon besides what the fans create.
  • Despite the fact that Peter Anspach copyrighted his version of the Evil Overlord List, the truth is, anyone is free to use it in any way they want for one simple reason: Jack Butler, the owner of the other version of the Evil Overlord List (which is functionally identical to Anspach's) intentionally released the copyright on his list, making it public domain. Were Anspach actually to press a copyright claim on anyone (unlikely), all that need happen is point out that you're quoting Butler's list, not Anspach's, and suddenly Anspach's claim evaporates into the ether.
  • Inglip will smite anyone trying to copyright him.
  • All the books featured in the pioneering e-book endeavor The Gutenberg Project are, in theory, supposed to be in the public domain (with the exception of a few for which the creators have specifically given permission). Many of the examples listed above are in fact available through Gutenberg.

Western Animation 

  • All of the cartoons created by Van Beuren Studios are public domain, as are all the characters they created (with the exception of pre-existing characters they had licensed, such as Otto Soglow's Little King) are public domain, as the studio abruptly went belly-up in 1936, and nobody bothered to claim ownership of their library or characters. Their Tom & Jerry characters do run into a hiccup, as a more famous cartoon duo bearing the same name had surfaced a few years after the studio's demise, forcing home movie reissues of their cartoons to rename the characters Dick & Larry. Even Thunderbeans' complete DVD rerelease of the cartoons had to distinguish them as "Van Beuren's Tom & Jerry" to prevent people from confusing them with the cat and mouse duo.
  • Private Snafu, being made for the U.S. government, was already automatically public domain.
  • Felix the Cat is in the public domain, but you can only use elements from his iterations of the pre-1930 Otto Messmer shorts and the Van Beuren Studios shorts. Elements introduced in later years, such as his Magic Bag of Tricks or the vast majority of his supporting cast, are still copyrighted until those copyrights expire 96 years after publication. These elements are owned and trademarked by DreamWorks Animation/Universal Studios.
  • Most of infamous Z-grade animator Sam Singer's creations, such as Paddy the Pelican, due to their rights not getting renewed.
  • Characters from the Blender Foundation shorts (except for Agent 327), provided that the Creative Commons 3.0 licensing terms are followed. The .blend files are often made available for other creators to use in their own projects.
  • Baby Hueynote 
  • Bert the Turtle, similarly to Private Snafu, was never copyrighted at all as it was created under the supervision of the US government.
  • Buzzy the Crow, although in his first public domain appearance he didn't have the name yet.note 
  • Bobby Bumps
  • Clutch Cargo and his sidekicks.
    • Space Angel, from the same company as Clutch Cargo, about three astronauts adventuring in space working for the Earth Bureau of Investigation's Interplanetary Space Force.
  • Calvin T. Burnside, Colonel Montgomery J. Klaxon, Maggie Belle, and the rest from Calvin and the Colonel.
  • Colonel Bleep
  • Colonel Heeza Liar
  • Dinky Doodle
  • Eveready Harton, a man with a Gag Penis hailing from a highly NSFW pornographic cartoon from 1929.
  • Farmer Al Falfa, at least any of his pre-1930 incarnations, as well as those from Van Beuren.
  • Flip the Frog.
  • Gertie the Dinosaur.
  • The characters from Ted Eshbaugh's Goofy Goat Antics are all in the public domain, as is his adaptation of The Wizard of Oz
  • Heckle and Jeckle first appeared in the public domain cartoon "The Talking Magpies", although they were pretty different from their more recognizable selves.note 
  • The turkey and the pilgrim from Jerky Turkey
  • Characters from Out of the Inkwell, such as Koko the Clown and Fitz the Dog.
  • Little Audreynote 
  • The cast of Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat, which the Walter Lantz studio never even bothered to renew the rights to as Lantz had disowned the cartoon due to its controversial nature.
  • Speedy the dog, from the Tex Avery short Doggone Tired
  • The cast of Nina Paley's two films, Sita Sings the Blues and Seder-Masochism
  • The small elf-like creatures from the Happy Harmonies short To Spring
  • Weatherby Groundhog and the "poor, hungry little kitty cat" from the Woody Woodpecker short Pantry Panic.
  • The cast of Where the Robots Grow, or at least their visual appearance, due to the movie's visuals being made entirely by generative AI (this excludes the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, of course).
  • From Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios:
  • Some Looney Tunes characters:
    • Babbit and Catstello, animated versions of Abbott and Costello. This also includes a prototype of Tweety Bird called "Orson", along with his catchphrase "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!".
    • Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid and his girlfriend Honey, the very first set of characters produced by the studio. The MGM version that came to be when Harman and Ising jumped ship is still copyrighted for a few more years however.
    • Foxy and Roxy, Captain Ersatz versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
    • The first of the two characters known as Piggy, who was another Mickey ersatz made after Disney ordered Leon Schlesinger to stop using Foxy. The second one, who has an entirely different design and personality, enters the public domain in 2032.
    • Goopy Geer, a piano-playing dog.
    • The mechanical Frankenstein's Monster that antagonizes Beans in Hollywood Capers.
    • Elmer, the Goofy-esque traveling salesman from the Censored Eleven short Jungle Jitters. The guy you probably thought of when reading the name "Elmer" won't be on here for another decade however.
    • Early versions of the Goofy Gophers.
    • The animal versions of World War II figures from The Ducktators.
    • The classic literature cast of Have You Got Any Castles? as well as the Alexander Woollcott-esque town crier that used to be cut from the cartoon at Woollcott's request but was later reinstated for its Golden Collection release.
    • The Tom and Jerry-esque cat and mouse duo from The Haunted Mouse.
    • The animal cast of Farm Frolics.
    • The celebrity caricatures from Hollywood Steps Out
    • The Dover Boys
    • Ala Bahma the magician from Case of the Missing Hare
    • The two castaways from Wackiki Wabbit
    • The gremlin from Falling Hare
    • The manager of the Broken Arms Hotel
    • The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf as depicted in Pigs in a Polka
    • Rudolph the cat and Petey the canary, a proto-Sylvester and Tweety duo who starred in what is currently the most recent public domain Looney Tunes cartoon, Puss N' Booty, which was later remade in 1948 in color and featuring the actual Sylvester and Tweety.
  • Disney:
    • Susie the Little Blue Coupe.
    • The titular Doctor XXX from The Mad Doctor.
    • The skeletons from The Skeleton Dance.
    • The woodland creatures from "Springtime"
    • Alice and the Funny Animals from the Alice Comedies, including an early version of Pete.
    • The versions of Pete from the earliest Oswald cartoons, the 1928 and 1929 Mickey shorts and the unrenewed 1930 comic strips.
    • Satan, Cerberus and the other inhabitants of the Underworld, as depicted in the 1929 cartoon "Hell's Bells''.
    • The Merry Dwarfs from the 1929 Silly Symphonies short of the same name.
    • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his supporting cast. As of 2025, this includes all of Walt Disney's shorts, as well as all the Walter Lantz shorts released before 1930.
      • However, his modern colorized version from Disney, along with the heavily modified Walter Lantz version from the '30s color cartoons, will still be copyrighted until those copyrights expire 96 years after publication.
    • Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024, as Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho are now in the public domain (the latter two's sound versions entering in 2025, along with other Mickey cartoons). Disney didn't attempt to extend the copyright anymore. Disney still owns the trademark, so while you might be able to use Mickey and Minnie in your own copyrighted work, using them as a trademark that creates customer confusion would get you sued by Disney's lawyers. Best to just call them Mickey and Minnie and use "Mouse" separately instead of their full names (aka their trademarked brand names) just to be on the safe side (you can still say that "Mouse" is the couple's last name, though). You're also not limited to Mickey's black-and-white design, either, an offical 1928 marketing poster shows Mickey with pie-eyes, his iconic red shorts and pale pinkish face (though it's off-white and yellowish in contrast to the iconic light peach color), as well as more unusual elements like yellow gloves and brown shoes. This design is thankfully distinct enough from his post-1929 designs to likely not raise issues.
      • Much like Oswald, Mickey and Minnie's post-1929 designs (save for some unrenewed late material and unofficial media, such as Toybox Series #3 (1934), Uncle Walt (1964) and Mickey Mouse in Vietnam (1969)note , the latter ones due to being unauthorized, of course) are still the copyright of Disney until those copyrights expire 96 years after publication.
    • The oldest versions of Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar, as depicted in cartoons released before 1930.

Other 

  • In general terms, anything solely created by non-human activity, such as A.I.-Generated Artwork or art made by animals, is agreed to be copyright-unprotected due to the fact they're not created nor authorized by a person or a corporate entity (except in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong on AI-made works, since it's deemed the person who made the arrangements for the creation of the work is the author of such), which includes very specific types of bugs and glitches (such as the MissingNo. example above). Non-AI examples include the Celebes crested macaque's selfie, to which, in short, after several debates, it was finally decided for it to be in the public domain, meaning that yes, as you may have guessed, the monkey in the photo counts as a public domain character. The line between purely non-person created and otherwise tends to be somewhat murky, though, so it's best to know what you're doing to not fall into legal issues.
  • Ever wondered why liches, mimics, halflings and orcs are seen across all media even if Dungeons & Dragons and anything from Tolkien's Legendarium are still copyrighted and there weren't any specific creatures named as such in mythology or folklore? This is because not only the ideas of undead mages and people storing their souls or anything life-related in objects (with the most famous example of both being Koschei the Deathless, who's considered a proto-lich), impostors mimicking normal or blessing-gifting objects, little people and grey or green-skinned ape-like humanoids (or, in some cases, pig men) existed way before their official appearances as individual species, but so do the words in their names, which both are considered generic enough to be protected by copyright or, if the name has been used in another separate work before any official trademark, like in the case of treants... well, trademark.note 
  • Within at least American copyright law, some characters with either incredibly minor roles in their source material or little if any defining personality or traits, among some other criteria, are not elegible for copyright, with at least two characters having lost copyright in this manner - The Moodsters (a set of vaguely anthropomorphic emotion detectives) and the above mentioned Sam Spade - while potentially possible to stretch quite far judging by both characters being main protagonists, it's safer to stick to using a Memetic Bystander or One-Scene Wonder given the nature of IP law - though it seems copyright can be retroactively granted if given a Not-So-Small Role or Ascended Extra status. This seems to be how the appearances of "The Baz", an unused character from concept art for Street Fighter II, in various indie games thanks to Two Best Friends Play have gone unchallenged by Capcom.

Media that uses many public domain characters

Anime & Manga 

Comic Books 

A number of public domain Golden Age superhero characters have been 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 to be confused with The 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 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.
  • In the early 2000s, Alan Moore revived Nedor Comics characters in the Tom Strong series. They were later used in two Terra Obscura mini-series.
  • Dynamite Entertainment has used about any public domain superhero they could get their hands on in the pages of Project Superpowers. This includes nearly all of the characters previously seen in Terra Obscura.
  • 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 character — he is owned by Marvel. However, he served as the basis for Harry "A" Chesler's version of Dynamic Man, which appeared in Project Superpowers. The later version had many similarities to the former, but several minor details (such as their respective civilian identities) were different enough to make them distinct.
  • 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 Golden Age-style stories, issues the size of Golden Age comics rather than modern comics, and even vintage ads.
  • During that same time, Erik Larsen introduced the Golden Age hero Daredevil and his supporting cast, a gang of young boys called The Little Wise Guys, as recurring cast members in The Savage Dragon. His appearance was identical to the Daredevil who appeared in Project Superpowers, but unlike his PS counterpart, who was mute, Daredevil could talk. The PS version also was known as "The Death-Defying 'Devil", presumably to avoid confusion with Marvel Comics' Daredevil.
  • 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.
  • Another odd use of several Nedor characters was in Adventures Into Darkness, by Kenneth Hite, a Tabletop RPG supplement published in multiple versions with game details for different rule systems. The conceit of this work was that in a parallel universe, H. P. Lovecraft lived a few years longer, landed a writing job with Nedor at one point, and merged several characters and ideas from his own work into the Nedor universe. So it's a Cosmic Horror/Golden Age comics setting book with Lovecraftian and Nedorian elements. Oddly enough, it works.
  • The original version of Blue Beetle (created for Fox Features Syndicate) is public domain, as well as Charlton's versions, but DC's versions are not — they belong to DC Comics. Furthermore, DC Comics owns the Blue Beetle trademark, which is why AC Comics and Dynamite Entertainment changed their versions' name to avoid litigation. Antarctic Press however kept the name when he appeared in Tomorrow Girl.
  • Centaur's John Aman, AKA Amazing-Man, was a member of the supporting cast of Marvel's The Immortal Iron Fist as 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.
  • Gene Luen Yang's and Sonny Liew's The Shadow Hero is a Revival of the obscure Golden Age character the Green Turtle, who appeared in a few issues of Blazing Comics and may have been the first Asian-American superhero.
  • Jack Staff ran into trouble early on by assuming that the 1950s British comics supervillain the Spider was public domain. He wasn't, but fortunately the rights holders were amused by the comic and allowed the character to continue to appear as long as he was no longer explicitly named as "the Spider". All the comic's many subsequent revivals of characters from older British comics were Captains Ersatz.
  • A non-superhero one, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen brings together many Victorian and Edwardian literary characters (although, as it moves through the 20th century in later volumes, it increasingly features Lawyer-Friendly Cameos of characters who are in copyright).
  • Marvel Comics uses various characters from the public domain most notably Thor and various figures from Norse Mythology as well as various other Gods and Goddesses from various pantheons such as Hercules.
  • DC Comics similar to their famous competitor also uses numerous figures from various worldly mythologies most notably pulling from Greek Mythology for the character of Wonder Woman such as with her famous foe Ares

Fan Works 

  • Child of the Storm:
    • Dracula is mentioned, and he appears in the sequel, Ghosts of the Past, as part of the Big Bad Ensemble, being the Arc Villain of Bloody Hell.
    • King Arthur, Merlin, and the rest of the Knights of the Round Table (heavily influenced, if not outright based on the Merlin (2008) version, though with some significant mythic twists).
  • Life After Hayate has an In-Universe subversion. The Wolkenritter's exploits from Ancient Belka's times were so infamous that they're still part of the popular culture of the Administrated Worlds, making them go-to villains in innumerable fictional works, many of them still available for purchase or in-production. Chrono realized that once the Wolkenritter became naturalized citizens of the TSAB, the unauthorized use of their likeness was now a crime and entitled them to punitive damages. Which is legalese for "a lot of people owe them some cash".

Literature 

  • American Gods uses various figures from Abrahamic, Akan, Egyptian and Norse Mythologies.
  • Anno Dracula: What if Dracula was real, and Mycroft Holmes was running the response team? And that's just the start...
  • The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids features H.G. Wells's Martians as a recurring background element, has given guest appearances to Sherlock Holmes and most of the classic Monster Mash, regularly features Jenny Everywhere, and more.
  • There are many "Sherlock Holmes versus..." novels that pit him against Dracula, Mr Hyde, Cthulhu, or other public domain monsters.
  • Dr. Greta Helsing: Greta's job as a paranormal physician puts her in touch with quite a lot of literary monsters behind the Masquerade, some of whom are quite annoyed by their fictional portrayals. Her good friends include Lord Ruthven, Francis Varney, and the vampire Grisaille, who finally admits to having been born Henry Clerval; she has a working relationship with Doctor Faust and his new employer; and she once has to awkwardly reassure Dracula himself that she doesn't take after her ancestor.
  • Extraordinary Adventures Of The Athena Club has this in spades, drawing characters from a lot of Victorian literature including Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Camilla, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstien and more.
  • Good Omens uses various figures from Abrahamic Mythology including God, Satan and the Antichrist as well as the names of various Demons and Angels.
  • Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!: Uses Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, Cthugha, the Burning One, Hastur, the Unspeakable One, and other Moe Anthropomorphism versions of monstrosities from the Cthulhu Mythos as its main characters.
  • Prester John and John Mandeville in Dirge for Prester John.

Live-Action TV 

  • The Secrets of Isis has the goddess of Egyptian Mythology as the title character. Considering the series is a spin-off of the TV adaptation of Shazam! (1974), DC Comics was eventually able to adapt her into the The DCU with relatively little modification to be the wife of Black Adam.
  • Penny Dreadful utilizes multiple characters from 19th century Victorian literature for a story between a band of adventurers and misfits fighting Satan and his disciples.

Tabletop Games 

Video Games 

Visual Novel 

Webcomics 

Western Animation