"Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" and "Mac the Knife" among songs now in public domain

The newest works released into the public domain are from 95 years ago, meaning that songs such as "Mack the Knife" from The Threepenny Opera and "When You're Smiling" (lyrics by Mark Fisher and Joe Goodwin and music by Larry Shay) are now available for use without copyright.

The lyrics and music to Cole Porter’s "Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)" which featured the musical Paris were published in 1928 and will be free for anyone to perform, record, or interpolate into their own song, although later recordings by Eartha Kitt, Lady Gaga, and others are still copyrighted.

A couple notable releases include Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse as depicted in Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie, as well as Tigger as depicted in The House at Pooh Corner which has caused controversy due to Disney's strict copyright laws. Adding colour to any of these illustrations may find people treading the line of using copyrightable add-ons with a publicly-owned character.

Everyone talking about Steamboat Willie being public domain but no one is out there shouting how Cole Porter's "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" is now public domain too. pic.twitter.com/0vSnc4AwxV

— foxtyke (@truefoxtyke) January 2, 2024

Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train are also now in the public domain.

As reported by Duke Law, "under a new law called the Music Modernization Act, decades of sound recordings made from the advent of recording technology through the end of 1922 went into the public domain. In 2023 there was a pause, with no sound recordings entering the public domain."

These recordings are now open for legal reuse, and all of the 1923 recordings will be available for download from Library of Congress National Jukebox, while recordings from 1924 forward will be streaming-only until they are in the public domain.