When Mickey Mouse 1.0 went into the public domain last year, he joined a host of other public domain characters—Winnie-the-Pooh, Sherlock Holmes, Snow White, Cinderella, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Robin Hood, Santa Claus, and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz characters, to name a few. This year, we get new iterations of Mickey and Minnie, and the first versions of Popeye and Tintin (plus the dog Snowy). Looking ahead, an exciting new cast of characters will become public domain in the coming years: Betty Boop and Pluto (originally named Rover) in 2026, Goofy in 2028 (originally named Dippy Dawg), Mary Poppins and Donald Duck in 2030, Superman in 2034, Batman in 2035, Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny in 2036, and Wonder Woman in 2037.

What about foreign works? Some countries have a life-plus-50 term and many others, including EU countries, have a life-plus-70-year term, even for the older works that have the 95-year term in the US. This means that works might be copyrighted in one country and copyright-free in another. For example, Tintin enters the US public domain in 2025 but is still copyrighted in the EU until 2054, because the author died in 1983. In life-plus-70 jurisdictions, works from authors who died in 1954 are public domain this year, so they are celebrating a different set of works on Public Domain Day. How do you know which law applies to you? As a general matter, courts have said that users are governed by the law in the jurisdiction where they are using the creative work. But this inquiry can be more complicated and depend on the circumstances surrounding the use.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5659160&forum_id=2:#48518532)