Tunes published in 1928 will be entering public domain in 2024

 As of January 1, 2024, U.S. copyright will expire for works published in 1928, including the following songs:

Back in Your Own Backyard (Jolson, Rose, Dreyer)

Basin Street Blues (Williams)
The Big Rock Candy Mountain (trad., copyright 1928 by McClintock)
Crazy Rhythm (Caesar, Meyer, Kahn)

Hooray for Captain Spaulding (Kalmar) (Groucho Marx theme song)

How Long, How Long Blues (Carr)

I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby (Fields, McHugh)

I Must Have that Man (Fields, McHugh) 

I Wanna Be Loved By You (Stothart, Ruby, Kalmar) 

I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You) (Ahlert, Turk)

If I Had You (Campbell, Connelly, Shapiro)

It's Tight Like That (Whittaker, Dorsey)

Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love (Porter)

Love Me or Leave Me (Kahn, Donaldson)

Lover, Come Back to Me (Romberg, Hammerstein)

Mack the Knife (Weill, Brecht) (music and original German lyrics are PD in 2024, English translations are still under copyright)

Makin' Whoopee (Kahn, Donaldson)

The Mooche (Ellington, Mills)

Pirate Jenny (Weill, Brecht)

Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise (Romberg, Hammerstein)

Sweet Lorraine (Burwell, Parish)

Sweet Sue, Just You (Young, Harris)

West End Blues (Oliver, Williams)

What Keeps Mankind Alive? (Weill, Brecht)

When You're Smiling (Shay, Fisher, Goodwin)

You Took Advantage of Me (Rodgers, Hart)

This list includes mostly jazz-oriented and jazz-adjacent songs, and was selected from lists found on Wikipedia and on Jazzstandards.com. Some dates were uncertain; in those cases I went by the copyright dates on images of the original sheet music. Please let me know of any errors.

Further detail on most of these songs is available on Wikipedia.

Note that for the Kurt Weill songs from “Threepenny Opera,” English translations were made after 1928, and those lyrics are still under copyright. The music and original German lyrics are PD in 2024.

In classical music, notable pieces entering public domain are Bartok's String Quartet #4, Gershwin's An American in Paris, Ravel's Bolero, and Villa Lobos' Chôros No. 11, Chôros #12, and Quinteto (em forma de chôros).

For more popular, jazz, and classical pieces entering the public domain, see the Wikipedia article 1928 in Music.

United States copyright law is quite restrictive as compared to many other countries. According to the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (aka "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"), works published or registered before 1978 remain under copyright for 95 years.

With the passage of the 1998 law, the cutoff date for works entering the public domain became 1922, with any works published in 1923 or later remaining under copyright. Beginning in 2019, however, the clock began running again, with each new year bringing one more year of songs and other works into the public domain. Over the next 20 years or so, most "Golden Age" jazz standards will lose copyright protection.

Many other countries have shorter terms of copyright; one common formula is the life of the author plus fifty years (see this table). For example, in Canada you can record pieces written by Wes Montgomery (d. 1968) John Coltrane (d. 1967), Igor Stravinsky (d. 1971), Louis Armstrong (d. 1971). Lee Morgan (d. 1972), or Kenny Dorham (d. 1972).

1n 1924, Mickey Mouse will be entering the public domain. Below is an excerpt from last year's post on copyright expiration, regarding the Mickey question:

However, if you are thinking of utilizing Mickey's image in 2024, you should consider that copyright will only expire on images from cartoons released in 1928, such as Steamboat Willie. In those early images, Micky had a somewhat different visage, with a longer, rat-like nose. He did not not yet have his white gloves or red shorts; they came later. If you want to use the white gloves or red shorts, you will have to wait a few more years.

Here's an interesting article on the subject, with an image of Mickey as submitted for copyright in 1929. It looks to me as though Mickey's nose had been altered a little by then, closer to its current look. He has his white gloves, too. The image is in black and white, so I don’t know about the red shorts. 

By the way, Minnie Mouse also appears in the 1928 cartoons, though I don't think she is credited by name.

In addition to copyrighting Mickey, The Walt Disney Company has also registered him as a trademark. US trademarks can be renewed every 10 years, potentially going on forever. Disney has a strong case for Mickey as a trademark, but less so for many of their other characters, who will be falling out of copyright in the next few years. Here is an article from the Western New England Law Review that covers in depth the legal standing of Mickey and other Disney characters.

More links:

2022 NYT article on Mickey copyright

Copyright Law of the United States (Wikipedia)