Public domain 2026 for musicians: "Georgia on My Mind", "I Got Rhythm" and 1925 recordings are free. What that covers, and the traps

Every 1 January a year's worth of songs and an older year's worth of recordings leave US copyright. This year it is songs published in 1930 and recordings from 1925. For musicians that means a short list of standards you can now re-record, rewrite and sample in the US without asking anyone. The fine print is where people get caught: which version you use, and where you release it.

What entered the public domain on 1 January 2026?

Songs from 1930. US works published in 1930 got a 95-year term (17 U.S.C. § 304(b)), and terms run to the end of the calendar year (§ 305), so they expired at the end of 2025. Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain lists the music highlights, and NPR's coverage names the same headline songs:

• Four Gershwin songs (music George, lyrics Ira): "I Got Rhythm", "I've Got a Crush on You", "But Not for Me", "Embraceable You"
• "Georgia on My Mind" (Hoagy Carmichael, Stuart Gorrell)
• "Dream a Little Dream of Me" (Fabian Andre, Wilbur Schwandt, Gus Kahn)
• "Body and Soul", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Just a Gigolo", "Beyond the Blue Horizon", "You're Driving Me Crazy", and John Philip Sousa's "The Royal Welch Fusiliers"

Duke notes the clock starts at the earlier of publication or registration. "Dream a Little Dream of Me" was registered in 1930 and published in 1931, so it is in. For songs of this era, sheet-music publication counts, not the record: "Mood Indigo" was published in 1931, so it waits until 2027.

Recordings from 1925. Recordings are on a different clock. The Music Modernization Act gave pre-1972 recordings first published from 1923 to 1946 a 100-year term (17 U.S.C. § 1401), so 1925 recordings came out on 1 January 2026. Duke's highlights include:

• Bessie Smith, featuring Louis Armstrong, "The St. Louis Blues"
• Marian Anderson, "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen"
• Gene Austin, "Yes Sir, That's My Baby"
• Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, "Sweet Georgia Brown"
• Paul Whiteman Orchestra, "Fascinating Rhythm"
• Clarence Williams' Blue Five, "Everybody Loves My Baby"

A correction to a common shorthand: these are not the "first" free recordings. The same statute released recordings from before 1923 at the end of 2021, and 1923 and 1924 recordings in the last two years. 1925 is simply this year's batch.

The rule that matters most: song and recording are separate

A song (the composition) and a recording of it have separate copyrights. Duke's own example: "Georgia on My Mind" the song is now free, but Ray Charles's recording of it is not. Only the 1925 recordings on the list are free, not anything else the same artists recorded later. And ordinary 1930 recordings stay protected until 2031. The exception is sound recorded for a film, which follows the film's term, so the 1930 recordings in King of Jazz are also free this year.

Three worked examples

1. You want to cut a new "Georgia on My Mind". In the US you no longer need a mechanical licence, and Duke points out you are also free of that licence's limits, so you can change the melody, rewrite the words or interpolate it into a new song. Learn it from a 1930 source, not a later arrangement. If your version starts to sound like Ray Charles's, that is still allowed in principle: US law protects the actual sounds on a recording, not an imitation of them (§ 114(b)). But copying a later arranger's distinctive chart note for note is a different question, because that arrangement may have its own copyright.

2. You want to sample Bessie Smith's "St. Louis Blues". The 1925 recording is free in the US. The trap is your source file. Under § 103(b), a new version's copyright covers only what its maker added. Duke adds that a faithful restoration adds nothing protectable, while one with original creative additions can. So a modern remaster with new creative mixing or restoration work is a riskier source than a plain transfer. Use a clean transfer of the original 78 and write down where it came from.

3. You want to release an "I Got Rhythm" rework worldwide. In the US the song is free. In the UK, a song whose music and words were written to be used together is a "work of co-authorship" (CDPA s. 10A), protected for 70 years after the last of its writers dies (s. 12). The Gershwin estate's site gives Ira's death as 17 August 1983. By our reading, that keeps the Gershwin songs protected in the UK until the end of 2053. Duke notes that, as a rule, the law of the place where you use a work is the one that applies. A global distributor release reaches stores in those countries, so either limit the territory or license the song outside the US.

Checklist before you use a 2026 public-domain work

• Confirm the date of the exact work: the song's 1930 publication or registration, or the recording's 1925 release. Duke's list is a highlights list, not a register.
• Separate the layers: composition, the recording you take sound from, and any arrangement or edition in between.
• Work from period sources: original sheet music, an unaltered transfer of the 78.
• Check territory before distribution. US public domain is not worldwide public domain.
• Keep a provenance note (source, date, link) with the session files, in case a Content ID claim or a takedown lands later.
• Do not use the old title or a performer's name in a way that suggests an official release. Duke notes trademark rights can outlast copyright, though narrowly.

What we think

This year's crop is unusually useful to working musicians. "I Got Rhythm", "Body and Soul" and "Georgia on My Mind" are not curiosities. They are the backbone of jazz and pop repertoire, so for US releases the licensing step and its fee disappear for a lot of standards that bands already play.

The bigger change is the recordings. Under the Music Modernization Act's timeline, a full year of 1920s blues, jazz and spirituals comes out every January, and sampling them needs no clearance in the US. That is real raw material for producers, and a fairer way to bring those records back into circulation than leaving them in vaults.

But a free song is not a free record, and US-free is not world-free. The risk for most artists is not the 1930 song but the later recording or modern remaster they actually drag into the session. Our advice is boring and works: use the original, keep the paperwork, and release outside the US only after checking the writers' dates. This explainer is general information, not legal advice. For anything with real money behind it, ask a lawyer in each country you release in.