Hergé Estate Challenges Public Domain Status of 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets' in the U.S.

The estate argues that U.S. copyright protection should begin from the work's first publication in the U.S., not Belgium, leaving the matter unresolved.

• 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets,' originally published in Belgium in 1929, was declared to have entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2025, by Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
• The Hergé Foundation disputes this claim, asserting that U.S. copyright protection should start from the first American publication in 1959, not the original Belgian release date.
• Under U.S. copyright law, works are typically protected for 95 years from their first publication, regardless of the author's death date.
• The estate's argument has left the copyright status of the work in the U.S. uncertain, while it remains fully protected in Europe and Canada until 2054.
• The 1929 comic marked the debut of Tintin, portraying a critical view of Soviet communism, and was only translated into English decades later, first in 1989.

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