Haunt Weekly - Episode 423 - Public Domain Haunting

[0:23] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and entertainment industry.
Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.
And we return to you this week to talk about free stuff.
At the very least, free ideas. Free things you can use in your haunt if you're not feeling particularly creative.
So kick back, relax, and maybe something in this might surprise you and and catch your ear because it turns out the public domain is, A, bigger than you probably thought, and, B, growing faster than you thought.
And, hey, we'll just say there's some interesting stuff in there.

[1:04] But if you don't like free stuff, well, on you. What are you doing listening to us? Yeah, what are you doing listening to us? We're a free podcast.
We can check out all the other things that we do at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Twitter, HauntWeekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash HauntWeekly is the YouTube channel. We're at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, Oingo Boingo, Bingo Bango Bongo, anywhere that you get your podcasts from.
So please do follow us at all the relevant places.
Okay, we have begun our New Year's resolution, kicking things off with our little New Year's thing.
Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We have begun our New Year's resolution to try and do a small amount of work on The Haunt every week, rather than just letting it build up until, like, summer. Mm-hmm. And we were successful.
Yes. We actually knew your birthday weekend was coming. By the way, happy birthday, Crystal.
Thanks. This is the closest episode to a birthday. Yeah, it's fun. But anyways.

[1:58] But we knew her birthday weekend was coming, and we decided, quite intelligently, I might add, to get out there either Monday or Tuesday.
I can't remember which day. It was an early day last week. I think it was Monday because it was also a holiday.
Yeah. We got out there on Monday and did not just an hour's worth of work, a fairly significant amount of time of work.
Yeah. In the haunt. And even though it's one of those times in which we did spend a lot of time, and it was a lot of work.
It doesn't look like we did a lot of fucking work.
Yeah, because we took down one wall. Yay!
We have been focusing on the back half of our haunt.
That is where we had the old disappearing wall slash slam wall and the back hallway.
We've talked about it, looked at the designs. For some time now, we've been wanting to kind of eliminate that back hallway because it's such a difficult space to work with anyway.
And make it four rooms instead of five. and in that process make the rooms much bigger.
Add a lot more space and openness to them and let us put more in there and do more with the layout in terms of the walkthrough.

Reflecting on past mistakes in wall construction

[3:08] But past us were seriously dicks. Yeah. That's putting it mildly, I think.
Past us, the way we erected those walls, you could tell we were putting things up season by season.
Yes. And not thinking at all about the poor sons of bitches in 2024 that have to take them down.
No, I think that that's probably one of two of the oldest walls in there.
In terms of both. Because... When it was built and having not moved.
Yeah, because it was an OSB still, one of two. One of the sides, yeah. One of two.
And it had both...
Phillips had screws without washers, so it was before we knew to do that. Yeah.
So that takes it to at least 2010?
Yeah. We can carbon date our work based upon the types of screws we used, whether there were washers or not, and the type of wood we used.
Yeah. We can basically carbon date all of our panels.
Yeah. So I think it has to be back to at least then, maybe before 2010.
Yeah. It's an old bore. It was an old piece, and it obviously had not moved in quite some time.
Well, no, because we also figured out that we put not one, but two concrete screws into it. Yep.

[4:31] And the way that we secured it at the top wasn't very good either.
So, you know, we're batting on all cylinders.
So basically, to get this wall removed, we had to actually disassemble the wall, pretty much.
Mm-hmm. and then disassemble the entire area around it to get it out. Yeah.
And that area around it includes, like we said, a disappearing wall slash slam wall, which is a very complicated frame with way more.
It has a lot of boards. It has guideboards and everything. And we were just putting screws into whatever was convenient when we did this.
Yeah, and it really shows. It really, really shows. I'm not sure.
Yeah, it stayed up, you know, 14 years or so. Yeah. I don't know how.
Yeah. Yeah. I think we just kept building off of it until it was its own thing. Yeah, its own thing.
But no, it definitely, it's better that it's down.
Even if we end up not changing the layout and backing off this idea, being able to replace the OSB with real plywood is going to be good.
It'll help with decoration.
And being able to put it up sturdier and in a way that's better for everyone will also help. Yeah.

[5:42] Well, and the disappearing wall frame is about a foot and a half shorter than a full eight-foot panel.
So we couldn't just bolt it to the end. No. Or screw it to the end. No.
Because it wasn't the right height to do that. No, I think we built that frame originally to go underneath the garage door. Yeah.
And then after one year there, moved it.
Because it was too much fright for the first room. Yeah, we needed it in a later room, so we moved it, but it was the wrong height, and we never adjusted the height on it. A lot of mistakes were made here.

[6:19] Yeah. Basically. So, yeah, lessons were learned. But we've been spending much of this past week cursing out past us.
Because even though, like I said, this took a not insignificant amount of time.
And a lot of cursing. Not at each other, but at past us, mostly.
Which dickhead did this? Well, it had to be one of us. Yeah. So.
But, you know, this wall is still on my list of ones that I wasn't as worried about as the one that's coming up soon. Probably next time we're out there. Yeah.

Discussing the next wall to be removed, anticipating difficulties

[6:50] Yeah, the one on the other side of that. Yes, it's as old.
It's not at a place you can get to every, like to all sides of it even.
It's halfway behind other walls.
So that one's going to be fun. Well, we'll get it done. I mean.
Oh, yeah, I know. We'll get it done. We'll find a way to do it.
We'll probably be doing that this week. So stay tuned.

[7:12] But, yeah, we're still nailing down some of the specifics and the layout and things.
These things may actually change. But right now, I really like the idea of going without that back hallway.
Just because we could do so much more with the space if we don't have this long, narrow hallway that we have to keep completely clear.
Yeah, we'll talk about it. Yeah, we'll talk about it later.
Alright, every week we ask a question of the week. And no, we don't ask a question of the week every week.
Well, we asked it. We just didn't post it. Yeah, basically last week's question, as well as your 2024 Haunt predictions, I did not post that on our Facebook.
Yeah. I could not find it if I did. In my defense, this has been a really crazy week for me.
I don't know how many of you have been following the news and the Claudine Gay Harvard scandal, Nary Oxman and all that that's going on.
As a plagiarism expert, this has been an incredibly busy time.
And, I mean, it's gotten me in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the L.A. Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, CNN.

[8:12] Where else have I been running out of fucking things I remember? Yeah.
All over the show. Those are just the big hits for the past, like, three weeks.
Over the past week alone, I've probably given over a dozen news interviews.
And over the past month, closer to 30 or 40. So it has been absolutely bonkers.
I've been losing track. I reckon it was also a holiday week.
So, yeah, I'm sorry. I will post it, and we will just roll this one over.
Okay. All right. So, you may have heard some news outside of haunting news.
Right. News about these headlines that are saying that, quote-unquote, Mickey Mouse is in the public domain.
That is not 100% true.
First off it is steamboat willie and other mickey mouse cartoons from that era that fell into specifically that year that lapsed into the public domain not mickey mouse broadly much of what we know as mickey mouse was developed later and there seems to be some debate about exactly what elements are public domain and what are not some say the red shorts are in the public domain some Some say they're not.

Clarifying the misconception about Mickey Mouse in the public domain

[9:21] I'm not enough of a Disney historian to even hazard a guess. Right.
Personally, I would keep it to Steamboat Willie and Playing Crazy, the two cartoons that did definitely lapse into poke domain.
But, hey, you be brave as you want. You go poke Disney. Yeah, I was about to say, that seems like the safest route. Yeah.

[9:41] You go poke the Disney bear. You see how much fun that is.
But any chance, it's not the Mickey you think of now.
As being the mascot of Disney. Yeah, it's not the M-S-E-K-E-Y-M-O-U It's that weird springy bastard. Yeah.
Like, why were all cartoons in so fucking springy?
Like, their limbs were just constantly in motion. In motion and fluctuated in length.
Like, we had to prove we were animating things. Was that what was going on?
It was a new art form. So, yeah. Yeah, I guess we did. But here's the thing.
In addition to copyright, right there are trademark concerns you have to remember mickey mouse is a trademark of disney so any use you do of even the public domain mickey mouse stuff you have to make sure and make it pretty damn clear that it's not in any way connected or affiliated with disney right um you know i'm not to be clear and to throw this out i'm not a lawyer this is not legal advice You wouldn't get legal advice in a podcast anyway. Don't be stupid. Yeah.
But I am an expert in this field. I do work in this field. I testify at copyright and plagiarism trials.
I know this space very, very well for a lay person. And...

New Year's Day: Creepy Characters and Horror Films

[11:03] Now, one thing that is interesting is, like, the minute, like, the microsecond.
New Year's, all this stuff happened, 12.01 a.m., New Year's Day, 2024, that millisecond.
Like, the minute that passed, there were a series of announcements.
The first one about a horror video game that's coming out featuring the character and a bunch of other creepy old Max Fleish era cartoon characters.
And actually, that looks kind of fun, just because those characters are fucking creepy. be. Yeah.
And it would be kind of fun to take a walk in their world for a little bit.
Yeah, it would be genuinely being transported to a different place.
Yeah. You could do a lot with that in a horror in a video game.
You could also do a lot with it in a haunted house.
Yeah, you could. It might be coming to this.
Alright. But also, not one, but two different horror movies.
Yes. And the funny thing about that is those films might have been okay without waiting for the copyright to expire.
Yeah. Because we saw that film, I think last year, the main one, which was a Grinch horror parody.
Let me tell you something about the Dr. Seuss estate.

[12:14] You think Disney's litigious? Again, Disney is very litigious, but like pound for pound.
Yeah. Disney's a mega corporation, billions and billions of dollars.
Pound for pound, the Seuss estate is way more litigious when you compare size versus litigation.
Yeah. I would agree with that because I've seen how much, you know, Seuss goes after people. I think that they make the news more, too.
Yeah, they do. Like this year, in fact, there was this year, there was a story about photographers warning each other not to use the Grinch as a character in your holiday professional shoots. Yeah.
Because the Seuss estate can and will come after you.
And apparently the license fee is like really high and you can't pay that.
And it gets crazy as fuck. So, yeah, they very strongly protect their IP, and Grinch is still very much protected by copyright.
They did not do anything with that film because horror parodies, there's a strong fair use argument.
I think it would have existed with these two horror films as well.
But they opted to wait for the copyright to expire, I guess, to eliminate all questions. It may not be a bad move, honestly. Yeah.

[13:26] But, yeah, it probably would have been fine before then. but yeah so this basically

Public Domain: A Resource for Haunters to Explore

[13:32] brought got us thinking or got me thinking most of all a lot of this is admittedly my idea and my admit and we'll get into it in a minute maybe not my my best idea um.

[13:44] Thinking about what is there in the public domain that maybe haunters don't know about, but could really use and make some hay out of any haunted attraction.
Now, normally, we're very strong advocates for creating your own characters and stories.
Yeah, exactly. Like, that's our favorite type of story in a haunted house.
That's our bread and butter on this podcast.
Well, yeah. Yelling at people to do your own shit. Yes.
Admittedly. And the reason is, one, it's unique to you because you own it.
You get to own it and you get to protect it. If another haunt likes your character and starts using it, you can either force them to license it or you can force them to stop.

[14:26] You own it. And that is an amazing thing to do because if that character becomes even remotely popular, even just like regionally well-known kind of like bernie baxter has gotten some regional notoriety yeah you own it no one else is allowed to take bernie baxter and do anything with it that's ours yeah now i don't know why anyone would want to it's not that successful but if you did we would have recourse um so yeah and the other thing is it's always guaranteed to be non-infringing Anything that you do and that is created by you, basically you know is yours.
You don't have to worry about that call from, you know, whatever, Universal Movie Group or Disney or whatever. You don't have to worry about that.
Because here's the thing, even though all of this stuff has been confirmed to be in the public domain by academics, and we'll get into our citations and all that in a second, There's always the possibility of a mistake, and there's always the possibility that something used wasn't in the public domain, though other things were.
Because as we're going to get into, this is surprisingly complicated, especially when looking at longer-term characters, characters who have been around for a while.

[15:43] Hint, hint, nudge, nudge. A good example of this is Tarzan, actually.
Some of the earlier Tarzan stories? Public domain.
Some of the later ones? Not.
Okay, can I do me, Tarzan, you, Jane, and Haunted House?
I don't have a fucking clue. I don't know if that came, that element of the story came from one of the Tarzan books or came from one of the later movies.
I don't know if it did come from a book. Which book did it come from?
I don't fucking know. I haven't read any of them.
And the last time I watched a Tarzan movie, I'm pretty sure I was in diapers.
So I have no fucking idea.

[16:22] So, yeah, just something to think about here, and we'll get into more of that into the minute.
But the reason we're having this is, basically, we're saying, okay, if you don't want to come up with original ideas.
Right. If you can't, don't want to, don't feel it's important enough, I'd at least like your ideas to be non-infringing.
I'd like to ensure that you, nor anyone else in this industry, gets a nasty gram and has to make major changes to their haunt for copyright reasons.
And so that end, enter the public domain.
Public Domain. Public Domain. You're not excited out there, Internet.
I can tell you're not excited enough.
They're still waking up. I'm not excited enough.
But anyways, so first things first, as a very quick, this is going to be hopefully a lightning quick primer on this, because we've got a lot to get through in this episode, a primer on the Public Domain.

[17:12] Basically, copyright protects certain rights in a work, including the right to make copies, the right to publicly display and perform the work, the right to create derivative works based upon it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
It's a bunch of very commercial-oriented rights.
Right. And copyright is the protection of when it's put into a tangible medium.
Yeah. If you're just having an idea and you're talking about it with someone, if you haven't written that down anywhere, then it's not protected.
It only protects works of creative expression that are fixated into a tangible medium of expression, is how the law puts it. Exactly.
And so, yeah, so there's your barrier. creative, expression, tangible.
Bingo, bango, bongo. You've got those three things, you probably have a copyright-protectable work.
If you have an idea for a haiku rattling around your head...
That's nice for you, but it doesn't count for copyright until you write it down on something or type it into your computer, for example. So, yeah.

[18:12] However, one of the important caveats of copyright is that it is temporary.
In the United States, works of individual authorship currently last the life of the author plus 72 years.
I've always found that to be really fucking morbid.
That we're just waiting for Grandpa to die so his copyright clock can start ticking.

[18:31] Yeah. That's a little fucked up. you gotta admit it is a little morbid but for works of corporate authorship which does make up the largest percentage of you know works we probably care about um it's a flat 95 years after publication all works expire january 1st at 1201 a.m january 1st thing again um the new year's day of the year after the date is reached so what that means is that in.

[19:01] And this year, works that expired in 1923, I'm sorry, 1927, I'm sorry, works that are from 1928 or before have fully expired into public domain this year.
I'm sorry, I struggled with that. Yeah, you wrote it out, so. Yeah, I know.
Oh, and we're not going to fully get into this, but also this year, sound recordings from 1923 also lapsed into public domain. I mean, that's because of a weird quirk in copyright.
Yeah. Basically, sound record, because up until 1978, sound recordings were treated very differently from books, movies, you know, anything, photographs, anything else.
Sound recordings were not treated the same way. They were protected under state law.
And when the federal government went back and said, no, no, no, we've got to federalize all this. We've got to fix this.
Yeah. They gave extra time, basically, to make sure that no one could object legally to the federal government taking over copyright of all that.

[20:02] So, long story short, too late. 1923 is the year for sound recordings.
1928, literally everything else.

Public Domain Works: Free and Without License

[20:13] So, with works that have fallen into the public domain, you can do all the things that you normally would be barred from doing if it were under copyright, for free, and without a license.
But, here's the caveat, so can anyone else.
Like I said, there's two horror movies coming out about Steamboat Willie.
Exactly. Totally legal. Yeah.
No, neither party can do anything to stop the other.
How many deranged Mickey-like characters are we going to see this year?
Way too fucking many. Way too many.
I mean, the idea is, in my mind, the idea of the horror movie version of Steamboat Willie is already stale, and they haven't released the first fucking movie yet.
Yeah because I mean basically it's a deranged like a human-sized rat that's that's kind of a done yeah I mean the FNAF movie kind of I thought put it put a pin in this last year yeah it's bad cuz I know people that were in that that movie, and I still didn't enjoy it. I'm sorry, my friends.
I'm so sorry. It just wasn't a good movie. It wasn't your fault. All were extras.
It was not your fault at all. But yeah.

Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act and its Purpose

[21:34] Now, here's where things get a little extra funny for U.S. copyright law.
By the way, all this is focusing on U.S. copyright, to be clear.
The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act passed in 1998.
It extended copyright for 20 years. And you'll often hear, if you ever stick your toes in copyright circles, you'll hear this called the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act, which is not actually very fair.
First, Disney was a key advocate for it, that is true, but they were far from the only. A lot of people were voicing it.
The main goal actually was to bring the U.S. in line with other countries.
We were a life plus 50 slash 75 year, which was very abnormal.

[22:17] The extra 20 years brought us in line with Europe, brought us in line with Canada, brought us in line with other countries we trade a lot with, which was very important.
Yeah, and it makes it easier for litigation across countries.
Exactly, for dealing with that across borders.
And Sonny Bono, the namesake of the app, and the person who drafted it, died while the bill was being debated, making it kind of hard to say no.
Yeah, it's kind of like his last act of billmaking. Yeah.
So anyways, but what that did mean was that from the year 1999 until 2019, nothing entered the public domain.
A 20 year run there where nothing entered the public domain.
However, now for five years, things have been different.
So what we're going to do very quickly is we're going to go year by year by year, look at what entered the public domain and see if some, if any of it may be useful to haunters.
And I promise when we come to the end, we're going to do some more general and some weird stuff and talk about some other weird quirks of copyright law that put some newer stuff in the public domain, too.
But, yeah. And also, I do want to thank Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain for these lists.
They do an annual Public Domain Day list. That's where all this information came from.

[23:34] And they team up with Archive.org and others to make this happen.
Yeah, so if you want the full list, you can go there. And I will put a list to the overall thing and the show notes.
All right. 2019. I love this. We finally get our first public domain day in 20 years.
Yeah. And like jack shit anyone cared about drop.
Yeah. This was a rough year.
Basically, the most famous thing was Safety Last with Harold Lloyd.
You've probably seen the famous clock scene in that where he's hanging off the clock.
Yeah. And it turns out he actually did all that stupid shit without proper safety stuff.
Basically setting a terrible example for haunters everywhere.
Well, I mean, you know, it is called Safety Last. So he just took that to heart. Yeah.
The Cecil B. DeMille version of the Ten Commandments. But fun fact, the actual Ten Commandments are public domain. They've been public domain for a very long time.
But that version of the film came out in the public domain that year.
And The Pilgrim by Charlie Chaplin is also from that year.
Basically, what I saw this year for movies was a lot of Chaplin-esque style comedy, Harold Lloyd style comedy, which is a common theme. We're going to be coming back to that a lot later.

[24:49] Um, but as far as musical compositions, by the way, we're talking compositions, not, um, recordings.
Remember, there's two copyrights to music, one for the composition, one for the recording.
We're talking for the composition here. The Charleston actually went into the public domain, which is a pretty big song title.
I thought that was interesting. interesting that means you could freely record your own version of the charleston and not worry about owing royalties that's kind of cool yeah 2019 2020 now we get works from 1924 was not exactly a banner year we get several uh buster keaton works including sherlock jr and the navigator some more harold lloyd including shy girl and hot water uh music compositions the best The biggest and best one I could find was Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Mm-hmm.

The Great Gatsby: A Haunter's Perspective

[25:42] 2021, we've got works from 1925, the first big headliner in the list. Yeah, so far. So far.
Just remember, now this is our third public domain day, and we finally have something that people actually stood up and took notice of.
Yeah, The Great Gatsby, because I had to read it in school.
I think kids still have to read it. I had to read it. I don't know.
I don't see how this is helpful to haunters.
The aesthetic in it is really pretty. The aesthetic is really cool, but it's a 1920s aesthetic, which you can get in a lot of stuff in this list because this is stuff in the 1920s. Fun fact.
You could just say it's based on the 1920s.
I'm not really sure how this one helps haunters. I'm not sure if there's any themes or characters or anything you could pull into it.
I mean, a horror version of The Great Gatsby might be kind of funny, but that's just it. It seems like it would be more of a parody than it would be. Yeah.

[26:34] It seems like it would work well as a mystery dinner theater type thing.
Yeah, it does seem like it would fit. Or an escape room. Yeah.
An escape room could also work. I could see an escape room.
Admittedly, I have not read The Great Gatsby since I was in high school.
Yeah. I remember it being okay.
Yeah. I don't remember hating it. I don't remember loving it.
I don't remember being mad I had to read it.
I just don't particularly have any strong attachment to it one way or the other.
Once again, though, more Buster Keaton, more Harold Roy. Jesus Christ, if you want to do a haunt on Buster Keaton, their Harold Lloyd, you've got some choices here. Yeah, you can just do it.
Yeah, basically. Musical compositions, Always by Irving Berlin and Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Burney.
Both entered the public domain in 2021. Once again, those were works from 2025.

[27:22] Okay. In 2022, we had works from 1926 entered the public domain.
And this was the first one that really got a lot of headlines and got a horror parody.
Yes, it did. good um a.a melons winnie the pooh the original winnie the pooh story released to the public domain and the situation there is very similar to what we're seeing with mickey mouse it's actually a very good analog right um the very first story of winnie the pooh was not very similar to winnie the pooh as we know him today he didn't have his cute little red shirt he wasn't yellow in fact it was a black and white book we don't even know what color winnie the pooh is no obviously pooh color oh god you use the color of poo exactly smack and a smack yeah but anyways um but yeah it's a summer situation now more winnie the pooh stories have lapsed we're coming to it but yeah this is one that basically uh got everyone's attention and if i recall correctly ryan reynolds did that very funny commercial using the illustrations from the original story to sell a cell phone service.

Ryan Reynolds' Creative Use of Winnie the Pooh

[28:31] He used just the illustrations and just from that one story, but with his own text and his own voiceover. It was actually pretty funny.
That, I thought, was a creative use. I mean, if you're going to do a pastiche or a parody of something in the public domain, that's at least funny.
Yeah, and of course... That's at least funny and unique. I think you briefly mentioned that there was a horror movie based off of it, too.
Once again, though, I don't think it had to be in the public domain.
I think they just saw the clock was about to run out and decided to wait and do it then. Yeah, well, and...
So it's one thing to make fun of something that, you know, and put it in a horror context of things that don't have big litigious corporations behind it.
But it is, like, you got to have some cojones to do that.
Well, and since, if I remember correctly, and this may be me misremembering, I think Disney did eventually buy all the rights to Winnie the Pooh. Yeah.
They did not. They licensed it originally. I know that. out when they made the first animated specials, but eventually they just got bored of going back for licenses and just said, well, how much for the whole thing?

[29:34] And bought it. Good move. But that initial story, Winnie the Pooh, lapsed in the public domain in 2022.
It was published in 1926. Also published in 1926, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, and T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom adapted into Lawrence of Arabia.
Yeah, if you know the film Lawrence of Arabia, the story that it came from.
So you could do your own Lawrence of Arabia if you hated cinema.

Sound Recordings from 1923 and Before in Public Domain

[30:07] For some reason, no. But regardless, also what lapsed that year was 400,000 sound recordings from 1923 and before.
So let's go through them one by one. Yeah, everyone, hold it. Okay.
Once again, there was that weirdness with U.S. copyright law that caused sound recordings to be treated differently than everything else.
When they were federalized, which happened very recently. This happened like four or five years ago now. It was not a long time ago this happened.
They said all works from this date on back will lapse into the public domain that day.
And the idea was, look, they've gotten more time than most works get.
Because it's sound recordings from 23, other works from 1926.
Yeah. You know what I mean? They got extra time. No one gets to complain.

[30:56] But here's the thing. There's actually a very good library at the Duke site I was talking about. They link to a library in archive.org where you can get these sound recordings.
And there's a lot of fodder for background music, a lot of fodder in there.
And this is something I encourage.
You know, you don't even need to use this as your idea.
Just if you have a theme around like a circus or something, you can pull up circus-related songs from that era.
You can take them. You can bastardize them, whatever way. Use them in your commercials.
You can use them in your haunt. Use them as commercially as you like.
It's totally fine. Once again, go to the link in the description.
400,000 sound recordings from 1923 and earlier.
And it's not just music, too. It's also sound recordings of just like crowds and background noise and things like that, too. You get a little bit of everything. thing.
Yeah, so you can get your atmospheric music also.
And never have to worry about the copyright on it, and never have to pay for it. Yeah. Kind of cool. Mm-hmm.
Of course, more Buster Keaton and more Harold Boyd. Yeah. We just get to say that every year.
And musical compositions were Bye Bye Blackbird by Ray Henderson, and more Gershwin songs. Yeah, apparently Gershwin had a very busy year that year.
Yeah. Alright, 1923.

[32:09] Oh, this one's yours. Sorry. 2023. works from 1927.
Yeah, I'm getting... My number dyslexia is being discovered.
It's showing its face right now. But the last of the Sherlock Holmes series... This is important.
It is, so I'm going to let you take it because you are the bigger fan and know more about this.
Basically, the Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and they were published in a a serial format in a magazine.
So their publication dates are like a human lifetime.
They come over a very long period of time.
Now the issue with Sherlock Holmes was, Though nearly all of it fell into the public domain before the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.
Three, four, something like that. It was a small number of the stories, but enough of the stories that they mattered got swept up and got that 20-year kick down the road.
So basically there was two decades there where like 90 plus-ish percent of Sherlock Holmes was public domain and then some of it was not.
And this meant that the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was able to effectively license and protect that word.
Like those Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies, yeah, they paid to license it.
Even though they probably could have just based it on the public domain elements, they didn't. They actually did license it.

[33:37] And that would have meant me here talking to you, and if you say, oh, I wanted to do a Sherlock Holmes haunted house, I'd be like, okay, you can use all these stories behind these stories, and then by the time I get done with my speech, your eyes are rolled into the back of your head and the conversation's over because you're probably passed out. Yeah, yeah.
It's like, you can use this element and that element, but not those.
Well, and one of the key elements you could not use was one of the darker ones, was his drug addiction. Yeah.
The whole thing about the 7% solution wasn't one of those copyright stories.
Also, elements about his past, including what university he went to and things like that, were still under protection.

[34:15] So yeah that is but this year 2023 that year 2023 works from 1927 fell off that was it for Sherlock Holmes now there's still trademark in the name there's still some weirdness there but the character the stories all that, Is yours. Yeah. They're as much yours as anybody's, I should say.
Yeah, exactly. You can use them.

[34:39] Let's talk about great escape rooms. And also talk about good haunted houses, too.
Because as you pointed out on our walk last night, Hound of the Baskervilles is a horror story.
It is a ghost story. It is a ghost story. And a damn good one, too.
And I love, I think the Sherlock Holmes aesthetic and I think the Sherlock Holmes setting would be great.
Because Sherlock Holmes to me was always kind of Scooby-Doo but serious.
Yeah. Yeah, there was also the one with all the men wearing the same mask.
That would be really creepy to pull off, too. Yeah, there's a, like, look, Sherlock Holmes, in my head, is up there with Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah.
And the people who established modern horror as a genre.
Yeah. And I know that sounds weird, because everyone thinks of Sherlock Holmes or Sir Peter Doyle as pure mystery.
But when you read those works, there are so many horror elements to them.
Oftentimes very subtle, but very sincere. year they use it to amp up the tension to make things more serious so yeah i think haunters could pull a lot from here yeah i'm wondering if the cross stitch that ellie just finished which is sherlock holmes theme and has the 27 solution in it the seven percent yeah the seven percent sorry seven percent solution 20 27 is on my screen because it was released in 1927.

Sherlock Holmes and Ernest Hemingway in the Public Domain

[35:55] If it was done this year because of that, or last year because of that.
Well, it's very likely it was done in part, yeah. It's actually entirely possible.
So, yeah, Sherlock Holmes, big, big get for Team Public Domain there. Yeah.
Also, we had more Ernest Hemingway fall into public domain last year, and Virginia Woolf.
Yeah, Metropolis, the film. Yes. And this is another weird one.
It has been, just in my fucking lifetime, it has been in public domain, out of public domain, back in public domain now.
It's such a weird story because it's an international film. And we'll talk more about this in a second when we're getting some of our weirder exceptions.
Yeah. And you'll kind of get a feeling for how this happened.
But basically a combination of lack of formalities plus international treaties has made the ride for Metropolis a wild one.
But it is very much firmly, decisively, completely, and totally public domain as of last year.
The movie. The movie. Not necessarily the composition that was added to it later.
Yeah, not the one with the queen and all that. No, no, no, no.
Queen music is still very much copyrighted. Don't do that. Yeah.
The original silent version. Yeah. Yeah.
And then you got The Jazz Singer. There's another big one that came out. Musical Compositions.

The Composition of Putting on the Ritz

[37:18] Putting on the Ritz. Yes, the Urban Berlin version. The original Putting on the Ritz. The Composition, not the recording.
The Composition, one of the public domain and 2023's. Sadly, not the taco version either. No.
Not the goat version. And apparently Ice Cream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.
I had no idea that was a full song. No, I just thought it was was a saying so did i but it's apparently a full fucking thing i've even looked at the composition it's like an eight page eight musical pages it's a full fucking song god i could see that being twisted so easily into horror music this is why you check the public domain this is something you can fuck with yeah yes you'll have to do your own version of it but it's not a very complicated composition look like it was composed for piano only so yeah if you've got anyone who plays piano I know you're into money here. Yeah, but no.
I'm just thinking about twisting it and having ice cream made of people.
Because Soylent Green is people.
Seriously, you can do shit like this. And now you can do it without worrying about copyright.
Yeah, and have it just playing in a creepy way. Once again, just a composition.
No sound recordings of it. But if you make your own cover of that, you don't owe anyone royalties.
You don't owe anyone anything for that. So look for it at your next concert that you go to, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[38:41] All right. And finally, 2024, works from 1928. Obviously, Steamboat Willie and Playing Crazy.
We've already talked that to death. But there were some others.
A.M. Elm's House at Poo Corner. Why is it so much poo?

[38:57] Which that was important because it introduced the character of Tigger.
Yes. We like Tigger. T-I-double-guh-er.
Yes. And now I can do that without probably, no, I have brats from Disney, so I probably can't.
Anyway, fair use, fair use, fair use. We're falling back. Yeah.
D.H. Lawrence, Ladies, Chatter, Release, Lover.

[39:17] Also lapsed. Yep. J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
This is weird because this is the play, which is in many ways the better known version of it.
But the original novel actually has been in the public domain since 1967.
Yeah.

Works from 1928 in the Public Domain

[39:35] So is the play the Cliff Notes version of the novel? I've never read both side by side.
I've seen the play performed, and I've read the novel.
Yeah. And I don't remember enough about either to answer that question.
I think that's just what plays are now.
In my head, that's where I'm going with it. Okay, that's fine.
Yeah. Okay, but some fun musical compositions.
Yeah. Animal Crackers by the Marx Brothers. Yeah, and that one can be perverted, too, very easily.
Twisted into dark ways. Dark, dark ways, yeah. Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love by Cole Porter. I had no idea that song was that old.
I mean, Joan Chet was covering that, like, what, in the 90s?
For Tank Girl. Yeah, for Tank Girl. Christ.
And Mack the Knife, the original German version.
Also, the composition in the public domain. We had new sound recordings, too. Yeah. The Charleston by James P. Johnson.
Once again, going back to how we began, it sort of brings the whole Ouroboros together again, the Charleston. And a lot of other stuff we talked about above was released.
The original sound recordings fell into public domain because of the weird delay.

[40:44] All right, now, this is where we get a little bit more into weird copyright history in the United States.
Because, basically, between 1909 and 1978, copyright law in the United States was bizarre. Right.
It was not like other countries in the world. We had not signed on to the big international burn convention, and we required formalities to extend or maintain copyright.
And so between those years, basically a lot of films and a lot of horror-related stuff lapsed in the public domain for one reason or another.
And some of these would be in the public domain regardless, but they did not lapse in the air in question, so they were not swept up in that.
So we're coming back to get them and some of these well you'll go like wait what that's from the 60s what the fuck you know we're talking about the 20s and also thank you to Screen Rant for helping me with this list this was a big help from them there one film that would be in the public domain in any way the wind blows is Nosferatu it fell into the public domain due to a lack of a copyright notice upon publication, and that was the old silent one the old Max I think Max Fleisch version yeah, Night of the Living Dead Dead, 1968.

[41:58] Same reason, did not publish with a copyright notice, was public domain, the instant it was released in the United States. Yeah, and that one's just heartbreaking.
It is. I really do feel bad. One thing I learned when we were at Haunters Against Hate was, because we interviewed, we talked with Judy, the name's slipping my mind for some reason, but we talked to one of the actors in the film, and basically the actors were investors in the film.
Yes, exactly. Like, a lot of the people you see in that movie were financially invested in it and lost a shit ton of money because they couldn't monetize it.
Yeah, exactly. Also, the cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1920. That one would have lapsed on its own, but lapsed earlier.
The original 1960 Little Shop of Horrors.
That one's a wild one. A Vincent Price duo here.

[42:51] House on Haunted Hill, 1959. Last Man on Earth, 1964.
Both of those are in the public domain. Yeah, Judith O'Day. Oh, thank you. You're welcome.
It was going to drive me up the goddamn wall. Because I'm like, it's Judy, Judith. Oh, my God.
Yeah. My brain is so useless right now. Yeah, and House on Haunted Hill is an obvious, you know, aesthetic for a haunted house.
But Last One on Earth was really creepy, too. Yeah, the desertedness of it.
That movie did an amazing job capturing the isolation, the loneliness of the character's position in the world.
It was incredible, especially considering it was a 1964 black and white film.
It's fucking impressive.

[43:37] 1962, Carnival of Souls. This one gets lumped up with a lot of bad movies because it had an MST3K episode.
Episode it's actually not a bad horror film and it is a very very creepy carnival film it is i think if you have a carnival theme and you're not using this somehow you're missing an opportunity yeah and yeah there are many many others uh check out like i said we'll leave i'll leave a i'll leave a link to the screen rant article which has those and others but basically because of the way copyright law was during the much of last century a lot of works fell into the public domain that didn't have to but did do two mistakes and some of those stories are very heartbreaking some of them are more uplifting but like the the nosferatu story the fact that films the public domain the u.s may have actually saved it yeah because it was being sued like fuck elsewhere by the by the brahm stoker estate and the state won yeah and supposedly every copy of that film was going to be destroyed but there was no way to really enforce it in the united states because both Bram Stoker and those frauds who are the public domain. So, copies survived.

[44:46] There are also a bunch of public domain horror and scary characters.
Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, just for these, go off of the original descriptors. Yeah, the original source material and all of these.
Don't go off any version you've seen. Yeah.
Frankenstein, not the universal version. That's a good example of that.
Frankenstein's monster. Yeah, Frankenstein's monster.

[45:08] What? Frankenstein, too. Frankenstein is the monster. I know.
Well, if you've read it and you understand it, you know that Frankenstein is the monster and the monster is not.
Yes. But Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster are both public domain as per the original Mary Shelley book. Yeah.
Dracula slash vampires. Vampire lore goes back thousands of years.
Yeah. Bram Stoker's Dracula, the book, has been public domain for quite some time. Yep. And the story there. Just mentioned. Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not the NES version. Not the very popular, super great NES version.
Please, please, please go to the source material on that one. Yeah.
I know we're all itching for the cane that doesn't hurt anything.
Yeah. But please, go to the source material.
The Phantom of the Opera. Once again, source material, not the modern operas, not the Andrew Lloyd Webber version, not any of that. The source material here.
Hunchback of Notre Dame, not Disney. Dear Jesus, not Disney. Yeah. That would...
You can do a lot with that. Yeah.

[46:10] I find it interesting that you put Jack the Ripper in here because he is a real life character but he's also a fictionalized character too yeah, he has that rare thing where he's crossed over from reality fiction that he's just become a myth yeah when we were talking and you were the one that got me thinking about this actually when we were naming cryptids for our haunt I wondered aloud if Jack the Ripper would have counted as a cryptid yeah.

The Dark Side of the Wizard of Oz

[46:39] Yeah, I remember that. Because it made sense.
Wizard of Oz is filled with fucked up shit. Just trust me. Yeah.
And in fact, we've seen Wizard of Oz in a haunt.
Yes, we have. 13th Gate had a Wizard of Oz theme once. It was actually pretty cool.
It was. So there's a lot of fucked up stuff in the Wizard of Oz. Yeah.
Yeah, if you're going to pull from the Wizard of Oz, look at the Return to Oz book.
Yeah. Because that one's got some creepy stuff. Yeah.
And the Return to Oz film, obviously you can't use content from the Wizard of Oz film. Yeah.

L. Frank Baum's Children's Books and Children's Psychology

[47:21] But, yeah, it gives you an idea of what we're talking about here.
It'll give you, yeah, L. Frank Baum, his original books, they were really not a fast read. They were meant for children.
So they're a quick read. But it's the classic example of children's literature used to hit different.
Yeah yeah well i mean there's the tiger lily's entire existence is because of you know children's psychology books you these are the stories you tell your kids to scare them into being good and doing what you want that was the that was the mentality then yeah it was an 1845 uh children's book it was a german book which is one of the reasons why it gets a little bit complicated it's called Tales of oh Jesus fucking Christ Stwar what's way too many W's together Stwelpeter.

[48:14] By Heinrich Hoffman. Heinrich Hoffman's easy to say. But yeah, but this included stories like the Scissorman, which is how I looked it up, because that's how I always remember. I know this article exists.
But yeah, basically it's like, oh, your kid's sucking his thumb past, you know, whatever date we deem socially acceptable for him to suck his thumb.
Tell them the story about a guy with giant scissors that comes and cuts off kids' thumbs.
Yeah, yes, that was good parenting back then. That was good parenting.
That was why you, as a responsible, loving father What your father and or mother figure did for your kid.
Yeah, you didn't want them to lose their thumbs to the scissor man.
And then like fidgety Phil, who basically he couldn't sit still at the table.
Yeah. So he eventually fidgeted himself so he fell off the table, took the tablecloth with him, and just got stabbed with all the tableware brutally until he died.
Yeah. And so seriously, Tiger Lily's album about it, I think, yeah, I'm trying to remember the name of the album.
Oh, okay. I was trying to actually remember the name of the Tiger Lily's album.

[49:10] Album um but it's because it's one of their first albums but it is one of the best and, uh come on oh yeah inky boys that's a good song too uh shock headed peter shock headed peter thank you i was gonna i knew i was gonna remember the second i heard it yep yeah i'm getting old shock headed peter uh you can listen to the album obviously you can't use the album and without permission i don't know they probably would be very willing to give permission actually but they seem like type of band that might be kind of cool with you doing this stuff in a haunted an house but um but yeah you can definitely use the stories um obviously that leaves krampus of any of the greek or roman myths those are low-hanging fruit their way but of course the greatest and scariest horror movie villain of all time torgo and the master from monos the hands of fate.

Public Domain: Manos, the Hands of Fate

[50:01] Yes, Manos, the Hands of Fate, is public domain. You are totally free to make your own version of the Master Robe and have it in your haunted house.
Although his daughter, who was in the film, also makes them.
And I think she sells them through Dom Industries.
Yeah, she does. And they're actually a really good quality, too.
Yeah. But, you know, basically there's nothing stopping you from including the Master in Torgo.
And there was a semi-authorized sequel recently.
And there was a huge remake. Not a remake of it, a remaster of it. Yeah. Why?

[50:33] Why did you remaster that? Because people have fallen in love with some of the characters.
So, real fast, since we are running short on time, ideas of what to do with all this, what jumped out at me, man, if you wanted to have a haunt set in the 1920s, you are fucking set. Yeah.
And I gotta be honest, the 1920s were a messed up era.
Because, you know, you're talking early Prohibition. Right.
Roaring 20s everybody's got money everybody's being crazy people are doing horrible things to one another it's a it was a really grim time despite how and everyone talks about how great it was to be a flapper and all that it was a really grim time in u.s history there was a lot of violence a lot of yeah i think it's been romanticized over time yeah and i think honestly part of the reason for that's the fucking great gatsby yeah i think that like 90 percent of us think of The Great Gatsby first and foremost. And The Great Gatsby is a fucked up book.
It is. It's a very fucked up book. Mm-hmm. But it's fucked up in a way that romanticizes the era it's set in. Mm-hmm.
And sort of says, oh, yes, all this stuff happened, but it had nothing to do with the 20s. It's all over here.
The 20s is merely the backdrop. No, the 20s were fucked up. That shit was common.
Mm-hmm. All right. So, yeah, you could definitely do that.

[51:55] But I would also, you know, keep my eyes and ears open for things that are in the public domain just so that, As new stuff comes out, you can take advantage of it. Like, I barely, and I'm involved in Copper, I barely remember hearing that the rest of Sherlock Holmes lapsed into public domain.
Yeah. I barely remember hearing that. I mean, I knew it happened in my head, but I almost missed it. And I, like I said, this is my field. This is my space.
And, you know, it's one of your favorite characters of all time.
And I really do think a haunted house with Sherlock Holmes could work.
Sherlock Holmes theme. So we've already seen tons of Victorian England stuff.
Now all you got to do is bring the character into it. Yeah, he could be the one that says, hey, this time we're going to be looking for these people from the... I need you to go this way and talk to so-and-so.
Well, I'll deal with Moriarty this way. I don't know. You can make something up pretty quickly here.
Or not. You can just use the actual Sherlock Holmes stories if you're feeling completely unoriginal.

[53:02] They're as much yours as anyone's now. Yeah, I would like to see you walk through the books, like the horror sets in it.
I think a walk through The Hound of the Baskervilles would be so great because you've got the old mansion.
You've got the bog and the outside area around it.
Oh, you could do some shit with this. Exactly. This could be fun.
And like I said, nothing in the world's stopping you. The last Sherlock Holmes story lapsed recently.
Everything Sherlock Holmes is as much yours as anyone's.
So, yeah, there is a lot entering the public domain each year, and there's a lot that's already in there.
Yes, nearly all of it is old, but old does not equal bad, especially in the haunted attraction industry. Right. Right.

[53:48] Because it's already weathered for you. Yeah.
It's already. And the fact that we're talking about something that was first published in the 1860s or whatever, that tells you about its staying power and its impact.
It still connects with people today. There are people reading Sherlock Holmes for the first time right now falling in love with those stories and that character. Yeah. I guarantee you.
So there's real staying power here. So anything that makes it into the public domain while still being relevant, yeah, that's good fodder.
That's good fodder. I mean, I still prefer to use original stories for many, many reasons, but this is a great way to give yourself something to build off of.
Make your own Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, why not?

[54:32] No reason not to. It's totally legal. Public should sell it or put it on.
A few years ago, there was the whole craze of zombifying everything.
Thing like jane eyre was zombies um i know pride and prejudice was the big one but yeah i know maybe it was not in this house no well no not in this house i'm a jane eyre i'm jane eyre all the way man yeah but anyone but yeah you can do a lot with this um this gives you something to build off of and it gives you a way to create something a shortcut to creating something new especially especially if you take this and make it and do your own spin.
Yeah. Well, all in all, I think that's about it on that note, everyone.
Thank you very much for spending the past hour with us. We greatly appreciate it. Hope you learned something. Hope this was useful.
Do check out both Duke University's public domain page that we're going to be linking to and the screen rate article.
There's other stuff in there, including, like I said, a link to 400,000 sound recordings. You're totally free to use.
Just saying, you might want, might really want to check that one out.
Please do check out other things that we do at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly.twitter, hauntweekly.facebook and youtube.com slash hauntweekly but until next time, I'm Jonathan, I'm Crystal and we will see you all next week for episode, 424, an episode of Visible by 4, it means it's time to do The News, we will see you all then.