Category Archives: Movie Archive

The Public Domain and the Rise of the Hays Code

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Films entering the public domain will soon face a significant shift. In 2030, films governed by the Hays Code will start to enter the public domain. The Hays Code was a set of self-imposed industry censorship guidelines enforced from 1934 to 1968 by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), under the leadership of Will H. Hays. Designed to regulate morality in Hollywood films, the code dictated strict rules on depictions of crime, sex, and “immoral” behavior, shaping the creative boundaries of American cinema for decades.

In a comment on one of the Internet Archive’s social media posts, Bluesky user josiahwhite suggested an interesting idea: that due to the restrictions of the Hays Code “[t]he public domain will get a lot more boring.” While this idea might at first seem true, upon further examination it actually clouds the clever ways in which filmmakers of the time navigated the restrictive influence of the Hays Code to tell creative and compelling stories.

To illustrate this point, we shall explore three films—It Happened One Night, To Be or Not to Be, and Double Indemnity—each of which engaged with the Hays Code in distinct ways. Through these case studies, we will see that while the Hays Code imposed restrictions, it did not stifle creativity. Instead, filmmakers found ingenious and often subversive ways to work within and around these constraints, producing films that remain influential to this day.

It Happened One Night (1934): A Pre-Code Example

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert

Being a pre-Code film, one might assume that Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night is hugely risqué, pushing the boundaries of obscenity and serving as a final burst of unfettered creative filmmaking. However, the reality is more complex. While the film includes suggestive moments—such as Claudette Colbert’s character, Ellie, showing some leg to attract passing vehicles, or mentions of gangster violence—it also adheres to many traditional moral expectations of its time. Opposite Colbert’s Ellie is Clark Gable’s character, Peter, a down on his luck newspaper man with a hard edge. Peter first meets Ellie when a man on their bus, Shapely, begins hitting on Ellie. Shapely attempts to endear himself to Ellie as “Fun on the Side Shapely,” flaunting his disregard for marriage vows. This denigration of marriage would not play well in the Hays Code, and the film itself seems to take issue with it as well, as Peter gets Shapely to leave by pretending to be Ellie’s husband. 

When Peter and Ellie are forced to share a cabin for the night, they construct a makeshift barrier—a sheet dubbed the “Walls of Jericho”—to maintain a sense of modesty. While there was no Code explicitly forbidding an unmarried man and woman from sharing a room at the time, the film nonetheless applies its own restrictions, anticipating the kinds of rules the Hays Code would later enforce. A deeper reading of these moral themes appears as the name, “Walls of Jericho,” references the religious story from the Book of Joshua, incorporating Judeo-Christian values that would later be emphasized under the Hays Code. 

The film ultimately concludes with Peter and Ellie getting married, affirming the cultural ideal of heterosexual marriage that the Code would later regulate as a fundamental norm. So what emerges from It Happened One Night is a blend of the unregulated era of Hollywood and the values that would soon be codified under the Hays Code. Despite the interplay of these influences, the film remains a masterwork. It was the first film in Academy Awards history to win all five major categories—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay—an achievement that underscores both its artistic brilliance and its lasting appeal.

To Be or Not to Be (1942): A Satirical Challenge to the Code

Carole Lombard and Jack Benny

By the early 1940s, Hollywood was firmly under the Hays Code’s influence and deeply entrenched in World War II. Ernst Lubitsch’s satirical comedy To Be or Not to Be follows a Polish theater troupe whose production of Hamlet is disrupted by the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. At its core, the film actively mocks and ridicules the Nazis in direct contradiction to the Hays Code’s provision against making “willful offense to any nation.” Though, given that the target was the Nazis, it appears this rule was conveniently overlooked. 

One of the most striking aspects of To Be or Not to Be is its subversion of the Hays Code’s depiction of marriage and fidelity. The film centers on Joseph and Maria Tura, a married couple who lead the Polish theater troupe. Maria, played by Carole Lombard, is heavily implied to be unfaithful to Joseph, played by Jack Benny, which the film often underplays for laughs. Her admirer, a young Polish pilot named Stanislav Sobinski, regularly leaves the audience during Joseph’s delivery of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” monologue to secretly meet with Maria backstage. Joseph is frustrated that his performance is being disregarded, while not at all aware of the deeper intentions behind the disturbance. Sobinski and Maria’s relationship continues to the point of Sobinski suggesting she divorce her husband to marry him, very much in line with the code. He additionally suggests she retire from acting to become a housewife. However, Maria proves reticence to do either, thus subverting the infidelity in one regard, and pushing back on the normative gender roles that the Hays Code sought to uphold. Sobinski’s relationship with Maria is cut short when he is called to war following the Nazi invasion. 

The plot is propelled forward when he returns to Poland and uncovers a Nazi spy masquerading as a Polish professor who plans to root out the Polish resistance. The film plays with its Code subversion through humor, such as a memorable gag in which Joseph returns home to find Sobinski sleeping in his bed, suggesting further infidelity. While nothing improper has actually happened—Sobinski was given refuge after parachuting from his plane into Poland—the physical staging of the scene suggests Maria’s attraction to Sobinski remains unresolved. 

In the film, the Nazis take Maria hostage just as Sobinski returns. Throughout the film, she skillfully leverages their desires for her attractiveness by navigating herself and others out of danger, and taking some Nazis down along the way. Ultimately, Joseph and Sobinski reconcile, but the film’s final scene reinforces Maria’s continued infidelity—just as Joseph delivers his monologue again, another young man rises and exits, mirroring Sobinski’s earlier actions. 

While the film cannot be as explicit about its themes due to the Hays Code, it remains sharp and subversive. The humor is relentless, the jokes land with precision, and the script is exceptionally tight. Despite the Code’s restrictions, To Be or Not to Be stands as one of Hollywood’s most defining satirical films about the Nazis—proof that even under strict censorship, filmmakers found ways to push boundaries and craft enduring works of comedy and social critique.

Double Indemnity (1944): Adaptation Under the Code

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck

Here we have an interesting example of adaptation and the Hays Code. In 1935, the original story was submitted by author, James M. Cain, to the Hays Code Office for use in a film script. The Office rejected it for “being a blueprint for murder” (Hoopes, 1982, pg. 268, 331). Since printed works were not governed by the standards of the Hays Code, Cain serialized the story in Liberty magazine during 1936. Following its success as a compiled book in 1943, the story eventually underwent adaptation to a motion picture in 1944. 

The best known version of the story, the 1944 film, was directed by Billy Wilder, and worked with a Code slightly less sensitive to crime. Yet it still had to adhere to a more restrictive set of rules for the film. The plot remains quite consistent in overall story beats between the mediums. An insurance salesman, Walter, falls in love with a client, Phyllis, and the two commit insurance fraud and murder, killing Phyllis’ husband. Following the murder, the two fall apart and grow distrustful of each other. Seeking to get revenge for putting him through the ordeal, Walter seeks to kill Phyllis by surprise. The two diverge in this encounter.

In the film version, Walter and Phyllis mortally wound each other in a shootout. Phyllis dies during the shooting, but a mortally injured Walter gets away. He returns to his office, and there he recounts the entirety of the plot into a dictaphone before succumbing to his injuries. 

The film’s ending places much more emphasis on finality for both characters. While the Code had loosened up on crime films by 1944, it still desired to show the consequences of crime. In its initial 1935 rejection of the story, the Office believed it was depicting “an adulterous relationship” where the criminals “get away with the crime” (Hoopes, 1982, pg. 268, 331). By ensuring the film reinforces the Code’s moral stance against adultery and murder, eliminating the ambiguity present in the book’s ending.

Neither Phyllis nor Walter die in the shootout. Instead, Walter recovers, and escapes on a boat to Mexico. While aboard the boat, Walter runs into Phyllis. After briefly reuniting, the two are implied to be contemplating suicide by jumping into the water right as the book ends.

Even with these adaptational changes, the film is highly entertaining, constantly building suspense through the imagery, editing, and narrative twist. In the end, the restrictions of the Hays Code don’t actively harm the tale, but rather creates a different interpretation of the events. 

Conclusion

In looking at It Happened One Night, To Be or Not to Be, and Double Indemnity, we can see how the Hays Code shaped Hollywood, and had creative filmmakers navigate its restrictions in ways that often led to ingenious results. The argument that public domain works will become less exciting as we enter the Hays Code era is not hard to envision, but it overlooks the reality that creative expression persisted and thrived under constraint. Just as filmmakers worked within the boundaries of the Code to create powerful, lasting stories, we should approach the films entering the public domain each year with curiosity, nuance, and appreciation for their historical contexts. As we anticipate Hays Code-era films entering the public domain in 2030, we should also celebrate the wide array of pre-Code films still making their way into the public domain—such as Frankenstein, All Quiet on the Western Front, King Kong, numerous Marx Brothers films, and many more inventive short cartoons. The public domain continues to expand, and with it, our opportunity to rediscover and reinterpret the works of the past.

This post is published under a CC0 Waiver dedicating it to the public domain.

Vanishing Culture: No Film Left Unscanned

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The following guest post from archivist and filmmaker Rick Prelinger is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age. Read more essays online or download the full report now.

Soon after the cinema was born in the 1890s, a few visionaries realized that film could become one of the most vivid and engaging means of recording history. But when they proposed creating archives to collect and preserve moving images, no one seemed to respond. Most movie studios treated films as expendable objects to be discarded after their theatrical runs, and most collections that actually survived were hidden in specialized spaces: newsreel archives, stock footage libraries, universities, and collectors’ basements. 

In the 1930s, a handful of courageous archivists in Europe and America inaugurated the modern film archives movement. Asserting that cinema should be seen not only as valuable documentation but as an art in its own right, they collected as best they could. But they encountered great resistance. They fought pushback from copyright holders who saw archives as a violation of their ownership, aesthetes and government bureaucrats who considered movies to be vulgar commercialism and unworthy of preservation, and fire inspectors who treated film as explosive hazmat. Ultimately, film’s immense popularity won out. In half a century, the first four film archives expanded to hundreds, and today it’s impossible to count how many thousands of archives collect film, video, and digital materials.

But film has always been hard to collect and preserve. Until the 1970s, film was generally made from organic gelatin bonded to various forms of plastic that inevitably decomposed. Much but not all pre-1951 35mm film was doubly vulnerable, made from cellulose nitrate stock that if heated or exposed to flame could burn rapidly or explode. Film, therefore, was and still is a deeply inconvenient object, requiring very cool and very dry storage in order to survive. Archives fires throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have destroyed large collections, and almost every film is still at risk from decay and decomposition.

Download the complete Vanishing Culture report.

For many years the gold standard of film preservation was film-to-film copying coupled with restoration—aiming to preserve films as their makers intended, and trying to preserve the theatrical film experience. This process is difficult and expensive. The turn toward digital technologies came in the 1990s, and now almost all film preservation is digitally-based, even if the product is a long-lasting film print for storage projection.

To think about film preservation is to think about much more than what we call movies. While to most people film and cinema describe the stories we see in theaters or on television, feature films are really a special case. The majority of films are “useful cinema”—films produced to do a job, to sell, train, teach, promote, document, convince. Almost none of these films have been preserved. And the supermajority of films, totalling in the billions, are home movies. 

From the Prelinger Archives, “Home Movie: 003791,” preserved and available to view at the Internet Archive.

Home movies—8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm 16mm and even 35mm—are ancestors of the videos we shot on camcorders and now capture on cell phones. We might think of each home movie as a pixel in a giant collective documentary spanning a hundred years, endless films picturing family, friends, travels, rituals and celebrations. Home movies picture our own experience of daily life, work and leisure, rather than narratives cooked up by commercial studios. And every home movie is evidence: a gesture of permanence. While there are large collections of home movies, most still live with the families that made them, often in damp basements or hot attics, all vulnerable to deterioration and the vagaries of a changing climate. Of all films, home movies are the closest to our hearts, the most charismatic, the most fascinating—and they are in the greatest jeopardy.

From the Prelinger Archives, “New York World’s Fair (Part 6),” preserved and available to view at the Internet Archive.

Fortunately, we now have digital tools and workflows to extend the life of film. While scanning film to produce digital files demands considerable skill, technology, and resources, it is more achievable than ever before. It’s possible to digitize most films that have not completely decayed and turn these inconvenient reels into digital files that can be viewed, shared, studied, edited, and woven together with other images and sounds. It’s now easy to take a film that may exist in only a single copy and share it around the world via the internet. 

Beginning in 2000, Prelinger Archives collaborated with Internet Archive to digitize and offer thousands of useful films online, and since then our films have been seen and downloaded over 200 million times on the Internet Archive and arguably billions of times elsewhere. Our three-year collaboration with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, now in progress, is allowing us to scan thousands of films (especially home movies) every year and make them available in a safer, decentralized environment where we hope they will survive for many years. While this is not classic film-to-film preservation creating restored film copies that sit on archival shelves, digital scans of films are likely to exist in many places, avoiding the vulnerability of unique copies in individual repositories. And the quality of digital scanning now exceeds the quality of film-to-film copying.

Perhaps most importantly, digital scans are easy to share. While film preservation should enable universal access to the sum of cinematic creativity, much film is enclosed by copyright or business restrictions. Most films held in archives are still not visible and even fewer are available for reuse. By scanning films that are out of copyright or have no surviving rightsholder, we can open up an immense reservoir of images, sounds and ideas for the makers of the present and the future. Scanning has made film preservation practical, and it’s also enabled preservation of “smaller” films like home movies and useful films, which reveal evidence and truths absent from feature films and television.

No film left unscanned: this is our dream. We have the opportunity to preserve deteriorating films in digital form and make them available for viewing, reuse, and computation as never before. As thoughtful archivists have said for many years, “preservation without access is pointless.” Digital scanning can and should enable both as it helps us to build moving and permanent memories.

About the author

Rick Prelinger is an archivist, filmmaker, writer and educator. He began collecting “ephemeral films” (films made for specific purposes at specific times, such as advertising, educational and industrial films; more recently called “useful cinema“) in 1983. His collection of 60,000 films was acquired by Library of Congress in 2002, and since that time Prelinger Archives has again grown to include some 40,000 home movies and 7,000 other film items. Beginning in 2000, he partnered with Internet Archive to make a subset of the Prelinger Collection (now over 9,700 items) available online for free viewing, downloading and reuse. Prelinger Archives currently collaborates with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web to scan historical films and make them available online. His archival feature Panorama Ephemera (2004) played in venues around the world, and his feature project No More Road Trips? received a Creative Capital grant in 2012. His 30 Lost Landscapes participatory urban history projects have played to many thousands of viewers in San Francisco, Detroit, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere. He is a board member of Internet Archive and frequently writes and speaks on the future of archives. With Megan Prelinger, he co-founded Prelinger Library in 2004, which continues to serve the needs of researchers, artists, activists and readers in downtown San Francisco. He is currently Emerit Professor of Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz.

A Red-Carpet Affair: Celebrating Public Domain Day 2025 in 1929 Hollywood Style

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Lights, camera, preservation! On a star-studded evening at the Internet Archive, we rolled out the red carpet to honor the creative works from 1929 and the sound recordings from 1924 that entered the public domain in 2025. And what better way to celebrate than with a glamorous, Oscar-inspired soirée?

Guests arrived in true 1920s fashion, riding in a vintage convertible before stepping onto the red carpet, where they were met by the spirited Raining Chainsaws street theater troupe, who transformed into a fleet of eager, old-time paparazzi—flashing cameras, barking questions, and adding a touch of whimsy and Hollywood magic to the night.

📸 Check out photos from the red carpet!

Inside the Internet Archive, attendees sipped on French 75s and Old-Fashioneds, classic cocktails that transported us back to the final, glittering moments of the Roaring Twenties. The theme of the night? 1929—the year of the very first Academy Awards—and we honored this cinematic milestone with an evening of film, history, and remixing of the past.

🎞 Lecture by George Evelyn on Disney’s The Skeleton Dance
Animation historian George Evelyn enlightened the audience with a viewing of The Skeleton Dance, the first of Disney’s Silly Symphonies. With its pioneering use of synchronized sound and animation, the 1929 short was a perfect reminder of how creativity from the past continues to shape the present.

🎬 Public Domain Film Remix Contest Screening
What happens when today’s creators remix yesterday’s masterpieces? Our Public Domain Film Remix Contest showcased the most inventive reinterpretations of public domain classics, where old Hollywood met modern storytelling in unexpected and thrilling ways. View all the winners, honorable mentions and submissions from this year’s contest.

👀 Watch the livestream of the night’s festivities

As the evening came to a close, guests toasted to the future of open culture, celebrating the power of preservation, creativity, and the public domain. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this dazzling night of history, cinema, and community!

Announcing the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest Winners & Honorable Mentions

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We’re thrilled to unveil the creativity of our top three winners and three honorable mentions in this year’s Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest. These remarkable films not only reimagined and transformed public domain works but also demonstrated the boundless potential of remixing creative works to create something new.

Watch the winning entries & honorable mentions below. Renowned film archivist Rick Prelinger returned to lead the jury, comprised of film professionals and enthusiasts including Simone Elias, Lara Gabrielle, BZ Petroff, and Theo Unkrich, offering insightful commentary on each selection and its standout qualities.

Explore all 140+ submissions at the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest collection at the Internet Archive.

First Place: “When I Leave the World Behind” by Queline Meadows

https://archive.org/details/when_i_leave_the_world_behind_remix

From Rick: The jury was deeply impressed by Queline Meadows’s inspired mix of movies, images, music and text woven into a subtle and emotionally affecting video expressing a strong sense of nostalgia and the irretrievable passage of time.

Second Place: “The Archive Boogie” by Samantha Close

https://archive.org/details/the-archive-boogie

1929 was a great year for the movies! Filmmaker Samantha Close expresses both the breadth of 1929’s production and the eternal bounty of the public domain, using images from 1929’s films and public domain images from elsewhere and elsewhen.

Learn more about Close & the film in this interview.

Third Place: “THE SITUATIONSHIP” by Samara Meyer

https://archive.org/details/the-situationship

Meyer’s crowdpleasing film features the daring, dazzling “It Girl,” Clara Bow, who lights up the screen in more ways than one in this Sapphic love story.

Honorable Mention – History: “Moving Pictures Aren’t What They Used to Be” by Jeremy Floyd

https://archive.org/details/moving-pictures-arent-what-they-used-to-be

Jeremy Floyd’s enjoyable piece pays tribute to an uninhibited period of filmmaking — Hollywood before the passage of the restrictive Production Code, when movies were filled with roguish suggestion and undisguised violence.

Honorable Mention – Home Movies: “Hoffman’s Honeymoon” by William Webb

https://archive.org/details/hoffmanns-honeymoon-1

Of all film genres, home movies are the most numerous yet the least seen and known. Webb’s engaging video brings them into the foreground, adding voices from dramatic films in the public domain, to build a goofy but endearing narrative.

Honorable Mention – Live Action: “The Wayback Machine” by DIEGO DIAZ & CAN SARK

https://archive.org/details/wayback-machine-4k

Diaz and Sark’s film is an audacious and yes, dopey exploration of the essential greatness of Internet Archive and the dread near-infinity of copyright.

Virtual Public Domain Day Celebrates 1929 Creative Works & 1924 Sound Recordings

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On January 22, hundreds of people from all over the world gathered together for Singin’ in the Public Domain, a virtual celebration of the works that moved into the public domain in 2025. The event was co-hosted by Internet Archive and Library Futures.

Watch:

Speakers include (in order of appearance):

  • Natalia Paruz (The Saw Lady), musician
  • Lila Bailey, Internet Archive
  • Jennie Rose Halperin, Internet Archive
  • Sean Dudley, Internet Archive
  • Jennifer Jenkins, Center for the Study of the Public Domain
  • Vivian Li, Innovator in Residence, Library of Congress
  • Tim Findlen (Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings), musician
  • Kathleen DeLaurenti, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University’s Arthur Friedheim Music Library
  • Colin Hancock (The Joymakers), musician
  • Ayun Halliday, Necromancers of the Public Domain
  • Simon Close, WYNC & Public Song Project
  • Dorothy Berry, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
  • Theo Unkrich, Internet Archive

Public Domain Spotlight: The Skeleton Dance

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Disney’s classic animated short, “The Skeleton Dance,” is now in the public domain (Duke Law). Why is that such a big deal? Watch as Internet Archive’s Sean Dudley, a researcher specializing in the public domain, takes viewers on a tour of what makes “The Skeleton Dance” special, and why the film being open to remix and reuse is important for creators.

On Social

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sean, and I’m a researcher with the Internet Archive. One of the most iconic pieces to become public domain this year was 1929’s “The Skeleton Dance.”

This Disney short is revolutionary. 

Its synchronization of music and animation still holds up. Primarily animated by Ub Iwerks, the short feature skeletons turning into Lovecraftian monsters and getting down to some really cool beats.

This was in no small part thanks to Carl Stalling, who would later become famous for doing a lot of Looney Tunes music. And really being accented by the “Mickey Mouseing” effect of timing the animation to the music.

The beauty of this short is that it’s already building on the public domain with the music that it’s utilizing and taking inspiration from previous artists like Thomas Rowlandson for the skeleton designs.

And now because it’s public domain, you are able to remix, reuse, or do whatever you want with it. Because it’s ours. It belongs to all of us.

Welcome to the Public Domain in 2025

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Image credit: Montage of materials moving into the public domain in 2025. Duke Law Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Celebrate the public domain with the Internet Archive in the following ways:

  • Register for our Public Domain Day celebrations on January 22 – both virtual and in-person.
  • Submit a short film to our Public Domain Film Remix contest.
  • Explore the works that have entered the public domain in 2025, below.

On January 1, 2025, we celebrate published works from 1929 and published sound recordings from 1924 entering the public domain! The passage of these works into the public domain celebrates our shared cultural heritage. The ability to breathe new life into long forgotten works, remix the most popular and enduring works of the time, and to better circulate the oddities we find in thrift stores, attics, and on random pockets of the internet are now freely available for us all.

While not at the same blockbuster level as 2024 with Steamboat Willie’s passage into the public domain, works from 1929 still inhabit strong cultural significance today. The works of 1929 continue to capture the Lost Generation’s voice, the rise of sound film, and the emerging modern moment of the 1920s. 

Musical Compositions

Show tunes and Jazz dominated the year with many standards that we remember today first being published. While best known for the 1952 film of the same name, Singin’ in the Rain was first published in 1929 and serves as the inspiration for our remix contest this year. George Gershwin also officially published (and copyrighted) his suite An American in Paris following a premiere in late 1928.

Below is sheet music for some popular compositions of the time.

Literature

Reflections on World War I continued with A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero. William Faulkner published his modernist novel The Sound and the Fury. A. A. Milne followed up 1928’s The House at Pooh Corner by adapting The Wind in the Willows into the play Toad of Toad Hall. Detective fiction thrived in 1929, with The Maltese Falcon serialized in Black Mask, Agatha Christie captivating readers with The Seven Dials Mystery, and the first Ellery Queen novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, making its debut. Explore our 1929 periodicals to find more hidden detective gems.

While not a towering work of literature, the first set of comic strips featuring Popeye also are joining the public domain. Popeye first made an appearance in Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Initially just a side character for an adventure arc featuring gambling and sailing, Popeye rose quickly to fame. By February 4, 1931 the Thimble Theatre would feature a subtitle, Starring Popeye, before being renamed just Popeye later on.

Below is a further selection of works from the year:

Dive into Archive’s literary collection to unearth more classics from 1929.

Films

Last year Mickey Mouse made a splash with Steamboat Willie cruising into the public domain. This year TWELVE more Mickey shorts join to flesh out the notable events of Mickey’s young career. He speaks his first words in The Karnival Kid, he wears gloves for the first time in The Opry House, and Ub Iwerks leaves the studio at year’s end with Wild Waves. Disney animation also kickstarted their Silly Symphonies series with the haunting tales The Skeleton Dance and Hell’s Bells.

In 1929, if your film wanted to have any attention it needed sound. Musical films were everywhere with The Broadway Melody winning the second ever Best Picture award at the Oscars, The Hollywood Revue introducing the world to “Singin’ in the Rain”, and the Marx Brothers making their big screen debut with The Cocoanuts.

Below is a list of more significant films from the year:

Our film remix contest is ongoing until January 17, 2025, so please upload your submissions! Read more here.

Additional resources

In honor of Public Domain Day, this post is published with a CC0 Waiver dedicating it to the public domain.

Celebrate the Public Domain with the Internet Archive

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On January 1, 2025, creative works from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 will enter the public domain in the US.

1929 marked the last gasp of the roaring 20s and ushered in the Great Depression, a major economic crisis that would span the next 12 years. One thing we can see nearly a century later is that, in good times and bad, human creativity, knowledge, and culture persist. That year, Virginia Woolfe published her groundbreaking essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” advocating for female freedom of expression. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened in New York City, featuring the works of Van Gough, Cezanne, and Gauguin. Major movie studios put out not one, but two musicals starring all Black casts: “Halleluja” and “Hearts of Dixie.” Disney continued the Mickey Mouse trend with a dozen new animated shorts. And of course famous songs like “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “Singin’ in the Rain” topped the charts.

Celebrate the public domain with us:

1. Creators: Enter the Public Domain Film Remix Contest

We invite filmmakers and artists of all skill levels to celebrate the public domain by creating and uploading 2–3 minute short films to the Internet Archive! Top entries will be awarded prizes up to $1,500. Contest details.

2. Virtual Celebration: January 22nd @ 10am PT

Join us on January 22 to get “that glorious feeling” of singin’ in the public domain! We’ll have an amazing virtual lineup of academics, librarians, musicians, artists and advocates coming together to celebrate this new class of works being free for everyone to enjoy. Register now!

3. In-Person Celebration: January 22nd @ 6pm PT

Please join us at our headquarters in San Francisco for a Celebration of the Public Domain! This year, we’re honoring 1929 — the year of the very first Academy Awards, held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, CA. Put on your finest attire and get ready for an award-worthy evening. Register now!

4. Explore the public domain

Check out our recent post for links to the newly opened public domain resources at the Internet Archive.

Additional resources

  • Learn more about what’s moving into the public domain in 2025 from Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle of Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
  • Public Domain Review has a festive countdown to 2025.
  • Interested in what’s happening with the public domain in Europe? Communia is hosting a one-day event on January 9 in Brussels.

2025 Public Domain Day Remix Contest: The Internet Archive is Looking For Creative Short Films Made By You!

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The Cocoanuts – 1929 – The Marx Brothers

We invite filmmakers and artists of all skill levels to celebrate Public Domain Day on January 22, 2025, by creating and uploading 2–3 minute short films to the Internet Archive!

This contest offers a chance to explore and reimagine the creative treasures entering the public domain, including works from 1929—classic literature, silent films, music, and art. Participants are encouraged to use materials from the Internet Archive’s collections to craft unique films that breathe new life into these cultural gems.

Top entries will be awarded prizes up to $1,500, with winners announced during our in-person Public Domain Day Celebration on January 22, 2025, at the Internet Archive headquarters in San Francisco. All submissions will be featured in a special Public Domain Day Collection on archive.org and highlighted in a January 2025 blog post.

Join us in this creative celebration of cultural heritage and timeless art!

Here are a few examples of some of the materials that will become public domain on January 1, 2025:

Guidelines

  • Make a 2–3 minute movie using at least one work published in 1929 that will become Public Domain on January 1, 2025. This could be a poem, book, film, musical composition, painting, photograph or any other work that will become Public Domain next year. The more different PD materials you use, the better!
    • Note: If you have a resource from 1929 that is not available on archive.org, you may upload it and then use it in your submission. (Here is how to do that). 
  • Your submission must have a soundtrack. It can be your own voiceover or performance of a public domain musical composition, or you may use public domain or CC0 sound recordings from sources like Openverse and the Free Music Archive.
    • Note: Sound recordings have special status under Copyright Law, so it’s important to note that while musical compositions from 1929 will be entering the public domain, the sound recordings of those works are not. Sound recordings published in 1924 will enter the public domain. 
  • Mix and Mash content however you like, but note that ALL of your sources must be from the public domain. They do not all have to be from 1929. Remember, U.S. government works are public domain no matter when they are published. So feel free to use those NASA images! You may include your own original work if you put a CC0 license on it.
  • Add a personal touch, make it yours!
  • Keep the videos light hearted and fun! (It is a celebration after all!)

Submission Deadline

All submissions must be in by Midnight, January 17, 2025 (PST)

How to Submit

Prizes

  • 1st prize: $1500
  • 2nd prize: $1000
  • 3rd prize: $500

Judges will be looking for videos that are fun, interesting and use public domain materials, especially those from 1929. They will be shown at the in-person Public Domain Day party in San Francisco and should highlight the value of having cultural materials that can be reused, remixed, and re-contextualized for a new day. Winners’ pieces will be purchased with the prize money, and viewable  on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons license.

  • Amir Saber Esfahani (Director of Special Arts Projects, Internet Archive)
  • Rick Prelinger (Board Member, Internet Archive, Founder, Prelinger Archives)
  • BZ Petroff (Director of Admin & HR, Internet Archive)
  • Special guest judges

For reference, check out the 2024 Entrants

Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-17

Posted on by

[Washinton Post piece]

Last week, along with a DDOS attack and exposure of patron email addresses and encrypted passwords, the Internet Archive’s website javascript was defaced, leading us to bring the site down to access and improve our security. 

The stored data of the Internet Archive is safe and we are working on resuming services safely. This new reality requires heightened attention to cyber security and we are responding. We apologize for the impact of these library services being unavailable.

The Wayback Machine, Archive-It, scanning, and national library crawls have resumed, as well as email, blog, helpdesk, and social media communications.  Our team is working around the clock across time zones to bring other services back online. In coming days more services will resume, some starting in read-only mode as full restoration will take more time. 

We’re taking a cautious, deliberate approach to rebuild and strengthen our defenses. Our priority is ensuring the Internet Archive comes online stronger and more secure.

As a library community, we are seeing other cyber attacks—for instance the British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library, and now Calgary Public Library. We hope these attacks are not indicative of a trend.

For the latest updates, please check this blog and our official social media accounts: X/Twitter, Bluesky and Mastodon.

Thank you for your patience and ongoing support.