Public Domain Day 2026: the class of ’55 graduates

Public Domain Day is copyright’s yearly “use by date” for the owner, or estate, of certain historic authors: as a new batch of works moves from “don’t use or only handle with permission” to “go for it” as they can be copied, adapted or reused (with the usual caveats about later editions and recordings), without permission. 

In the UK, the headline term for most literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works is the author’s life plus 70 years. So, from 1 January 2026, creators who died in 1955 have (generally) moved into the public domain — and here are a few of the better known examples. 

A few distinguished “new entrants” worth raiding for ideas:

• Thomas Mann (d. 12 August 1955): the Nobel-winning novelist whose titles sound like they come with footnotes. Want to stage, quote, translate, or riff on The Magic Mountain without a permissions spreadsheet? Now you can.
• Albert Einstein (d. 18 April 1955): the writing behind relativity is yours to reproduce, annotate, and republish — for scholarship, or an insufferably clever set of posters.
• Fernand Léger (d. August 1955): modernist punch, cubist “tubism”, and machine-age energy ready for designers, publishers and printmakers to re-deploy.
• Paul Claudel (d. 23 February 1955): symbolist verse drama with a diplomat’s stamp collection — proof the public domain can be both lofty and slightly impractical.
• Arthur Honegger (d. 27 November 1955) and George Enescu (d. 4 May 1955): two different 20th-century musical voices now open for new editions, arrangements and performances of the underlying compositions.  

So - for all of those artists, advertising agencies and other creatives that we work with and that are looking for a new set of creative sources to draw from, look no further than this latest set of geniuses that we all now have the benefit of.

Apologetic Lawyerly footnote: what is, in fact, “public domain” isn’t always straightforward, particularly where large corporations deliberately try to use other protections like trade marks and their own subsequent adaptations to catch you out. New typographical arrangements, modern recordings, and other embedded rights can still apply, and other jurisdictions have their own terms of duration and other quirks. But for the underlying works of the class of ’55, the UK default is: permission no longer required.