🎩 Public domain music
Public domain music is music nobody owns any more, so anyone can play it, copy it or change it for free. In the United States in 2026, songs published in 1930 or earlier are public domain, and so are recordings made in 1925 or earlier. Peabody's Old Hits station plays those old songs.
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Music rooms
- Peabody RadioEvery station, and the player that keeps going on every page.
- Song sheetsOld songs that belong to everyone, with chords, in any key.
- For grown-upsWhere every song on Peabody comes from.
Two things in every record
A record has two things in it, and each has its own copyright. The song is the tune and the words, as somebody wrote them. The recording is one band playing it one day.
To use an old record, both have to be free: an old song in a new recording isn't, and a new song in an old recording isn't either.
The rules, in three lines (United States)
Songs and pieces published in 1930 or earlier are public domain now. Songs from 1931 join on 1 January 2027, and one more year joins every 1 January after.
Recordings made in 1925 or earlier are public domain now. Recordings from 1926 join on 1 January 2027.
Other countries have their own rules. In many, a song is free 70 years after the person who wrote it died.
How Old Hits stays free
Old Hits plays songs published between 1902 and 1930, so the songs are free. It never uses anyone's recording: Peabody's band plays each tune and its chords itself, written out from old sheet music and published transcriptions. So nothing about it belongs to anyone else. It plays only the tune, never the words.
Each song comes round as a different band: a swing band, beep boops, elevator music, a marching band or a music box.
The songs on Old Hits
- The Entertainer (1902)
- In the Good Old Summertime (1902)
- Toyland (1903)
- You're a Grand Old Flag (1906)
- The Teddy Bears' Picnic (1907)
- Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1908)
- Shine On, Harvest Moon (1908)
- By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1909)
- Colonel Bogey March (1914)
- Yes! We Have No Bananas (1923)
- Tea for Two (1924)
- Sweet Georgia Brown (1925)
- Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (1925)
- When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along (1926)
- Bye Bye Blackbird (1926)
- Ain't She Sweet (1927)
- Singin' in the Rain (1929)
- Happy Days Are Here Again (1929)
- Tiptoe Through the Tulips (1929)
- I Got Rhythm (1930)
For grown-ups
This is a plain summary of US rules, not legal advice. Peabody's song sheets are nursery rhymes and folk songs printed before 1931, and each sheet names where its words and tune were first printed. Where the familiar words could not be traced to an early printing, Peabody wrote its own. Where the songs come from.