As always, the headline should be qualified with ‘… in the USA.’
Tintin the brave cub reporter — and his dog, Snowy — will enter the public domain in the U.S. well before they will in the European Union, where they are copyrighted until 2054. That’s because EU copyright terms extend 70 years past creators’ deaths, and Belgian cartoonist Hergé died in 1983.
As always, the headline should be qualified with ‘… in the USA.’
How does that work anyway? Would any American public domain usages of the characters be banned from release in the EU?
Or, they have to pay royalties to the owners there?
That definitely makes more sense. Admitedly I didn’t put much thought into it