Those participating in this gamejam should note that many of the works entering public domain in 2025 in the US, are not necessarily public domain world-wide. If you were to make something based on Agatha Christie, for example, you'd have to geoblock your game to players outside of the US (is geoblocking even an option on Itch?). 

As a Canadian, I can't participate. Well, I could, but I couldn't distribute an Agatha Christie game until 2043 in my own country or the UK & EU.

I'm a little bummed, now that I've done this research. I was looking forward to participating! 

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_public_domain

I'm so mad. I just found out about this and yeah I was looking forward to participating but because of this I'm going to have to reconsider.  

I found some weird tales short stories that should be in the public domain in both the USA  and Canada, as they were in the public domain here in Canada  before the change in copyright law was put into effect.  Unless I'm misunderstanding something. 

In 2022, Canada switched from Life+50 to Life+70, but all works from people whose creators died in 1971 or before are in the public domain. There's no new works in the Canadian public domain until 2043, but a lot of the stuff in the new US public domain was already in the public domain in Canada.

Notable works entering the public domain in the US in 2025 that are already PD in Canada:

• Popeye the Sailor Man
• Brown on Resolution by CS Forester (the Horatio Hornblower books are PD in Canada but not US for quite a while)
• Mary of Marion Isle  by H. Rider Haggard
• The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
• The Treachery of Images - Rene Magritte (the pipe painting)
• The Sea - Harue Koga
• The Bus - Frida Kahlo
• I'm a Gigolo - Cole Porter (lyrics/music, not the sound recording)
• Why Was I Born? - Hammerstein 

And quite a lot of short stories.