2028 in public domain

When a work's copyright expires, it enters the public domain. The following is a list of creators whose works enter the public domain in 2028. Since laws vary globally, the copyright status of some works is not uniform.

Entering the public domain in countries with life + 70 years
With the exception of Belarus (Life + 50 years) and Spain (which has a copyright term of Life + 80 years for creators that died before 1988), a work enters the public domain in Europe 70 years after the creator's death, if it was published during the creator's lifetime. For previously unpublished material, those who publish it first will have the publication rights for 25 years. In addition, several other countries in the world have a limit of 70 years. The list is sorted alphabetically and includes a notable work of the creator.

Countries with life + 60 years
In Bangladesh, India, and Venezuela a work enters the public domain 60 years after the creator's death.

Countries with life + 50 years
In most countries of Africa and Asia, as well as Belarus, Bolivia, New Zealand, Egypt and Uruguay, a work enters the public domain 50 years after the creator's death.

Countries with life + 80 years
Spain has a copyright term of life + 80 years for creators that died before 1988. In Colombia and Equatorial Guinea a work enters the public domain 80 years after the creator's death.

United States
Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books published in 1932, films released in 1932, and other works published in 1932, will enter the public domain in 2028. Sound recordings that were published in 1927 and unpublished works whose authors died in 1957 will also enter the public domain.

Among the films that will enter the public domain in 2028 are the original Scarface, The Mummy with Boris Karloff, Tarzan the Ape Man with Johnny Weissmuller, Best Picture Academy Award-winner Grand Hotel, Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express with Marlene Dietrich, Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise, The Music Box starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Katharine Hepburn's film debut A Bill of Divorcement, Shirley Temple's film debut The Red-Haired Alibi, the earliest still under copyright Looney Tunes short films, Horse Feathers with the Marx Brothers, Tod Browning's Freaks, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr, Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning, Yasujirō Ozu's I Was Born, But..., the first Mexican sound film Santa, the oldest surviving Marathi language sound film Ayodhyecha Raja, Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees (the first cartoon produced in Technicolor), and Mickey's Revue with the first appearance of Goofy.

Examples of important literary works entering the public domain include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, William Faulkner's Light in August, Samuel Becket's Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, Zelda Fitzgerald's Save Me the Waltz, John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot detective novel Peril at End House, John Dos Passos's Nineteen Nineteen, Robert E. Howard's first Conan the Barbarian short story The Phoenix on the Sword, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Herge's Tintin in America in its original French unedited black-and-white version and W. E. Johns’ first Biggles-collection The Camels Are Coming.

Important artworks entering the public domain include Pablo Picasso's Nude in a Black Armchair and Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, Oskar Schlemmer's painting Bauhaus Stairway, Otto Dix's triptych The War, Henri Matisse's mural The Dance II, David Alfaro Siqueiros' fresco América Tropical, Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals, Alberto Giacometti's sculpture The Palace at 4 a.m., photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper, Man Ray's photograph Larmes and some of the earliest professional photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson including Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare and Hyères, France.