New Delhi, Jan. 3 -- Betty Boop and "Blondie" are joining Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh in the public domain.

The first appearances of the classic cartoon and comic characters are among the pieces of intellectual property whose 95-year U.S. copyright maximum has been reached, putting them in the public domain on Jan. 1. That means creators can use and repurpose them without permission or payment.

The 2026 batch of newly public artistic creations doesn't quite have the sparkle of the recent first entries into the public domain of Mickey or Winnie. But ever since 2019 - the end of a 20-year IP drought brought on by congressional copyright extensions - every annual crop has been a bounty for advocates of more work belonging to the publi...