What songs are entering the public domain in 2025?
Every artist in the world is bound to deal with copyright shenanigans sooner or later in their career. Though most people are proud to have their songs played everywhere and enjoyed by millions across the world, the arguments over who’s getting paid at the end of the day are both the problem and solution for everyone’s troubles in the music business. Copyrights only hold for so long, and 2025 marks the moment when some massive tracks are going to become a part of the public domain.
Before looking at the public domain, it’s important to look at the mechanics behind copyrighted works. Even though some of the biggest names in music are still firmly among the living, they still hold the copyright on the material for 70 years after their death, meaning that The Beatles’ catalogue will still be filling Michael Jackson’s estate’s pockets for almost a century after the Fab Four have departed from this world.
When not looking at the author specifically, works will enter the public domain 100 years after they were first published. So, while we’re not talking about anything remotely close to rock and roll, there are still pieces from 1925 that most people will recognise and be able to use as they wish.
Despite most people using older songs either for samples or background music these days, it will be a lot easier to slap one’s own copyright on their work, even if they have a few familiar sounds to them. And when talking about the 1920s, that means pulling from the world of jazz and classical music.
So, what songs are entering the public domain in 2025?
Since the 1920s marked the height of the biggest names in jazz and easy listening rising to prominence, many of the best songs from around that time come from the earliest days of pop music. Outside of some people’s haunted memories of seeing it used in movies like A Clockwork Orange, standards like ‘Singing In the Rain’ will be entering the public domain, as will Fats Waller’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Alfred Dublin’s ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’, made famous by Tiny Tim.
While most of the songs still work well, they seem to come from a completely different world compared to 2025. Although some hip-hop artists aren’t above using some light jazz as part of their beats, hearing the smooth sounds of artists like Cole Porter and George Gershwin conjure up the days when America prospered in the years right before the Great Depression.
Even outside of the traditional pop songs, many sound recordings are also entering the public domain. Since that date applies to tunes from 1924, these feature some pieces of pop music’s pre-rock and roll glory years, like George Gershwin’s recording of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ or ‘California Here I Come’ by Al Jolson, known as one of the actors in one of the first talking pictures in film history, The Jazz Singer.
Although not every one of these songs necessarily has the same staying power as they had back in the ‘Roaring Twenties’, entering the public domain isn’t solely about taking the copyright away from someone. It’s about sharing the music with the rest of the world, and now that people have their hands on the original compositions, there’s no telling what the next generations will shape these tunes into later.
Songs entering the public domain in 2025:
- ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ – Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown
- ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’- Andy Paul Razaf, Thomas W. (“Fats”) Waller & Harry Brooks
- ‘An American in Paris’ – George Gershwin
- ‘Boléro’ – Maurice Ravel
- ‘(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue’ – Andy Paul Razaf, Thomas W. “Fats” Waller & Harry Brooks
- ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ – Alfred Dubin & Joseph Burke
- ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ – Jack Yellen & Milton Ager
- ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’ – Cole Porter
- ‘Am I Blue?’ – Grant Clarke & Harry Akst
- ‘You Were Meant for Me’ – Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown
- ‘Honey’ – Seymour Simons, Haven Gillespie, & Richard A. Whiting
- ‘Waiting for a Train’ – Jimmie Rodgers
Sound recordings entering the public domain:
- ‘My Way’s Cloudy’ – Marian Anderson
- ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ – George Gershwin
- ‘Shreveport Stomp’ – Jelly Roll Morton
- ‘Lazy’ – The Georgians
- ‘Krooked Blues’ – King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band featuring Louis Armstrong
- ‘Deep Blue Sea Blues’ – Clara Smith
- ‘The Gouge of Armour Avenue’ – Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra featuring Big Charlie Green
- ‘Mama’s Gone, Good Bye’ – Ray Miller and his Orchestra
- ‘It Had To Be You’ – The Isham Jones Orchestra and by Marion Harris
- ‘California Here I Come’ – Al Jolson
