Good morning,

I was just looking up some steam train audio recordings I might use in my podcast and thought I would share this with all of you.

As of January 1, 2026, all motion pictures published and exhibited in the United States in 1930 and earlier—including those from 1928 and 1929—are indisputably in the public domain.

Why did I bring this up?

Some of you might be familiar with this YouTube Channel:

"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqKGkdgzE1eOoWMIlRG2IfpiujDQJ9wkV"

and this:

https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisi ... ection.php

I am planning to use the audio from these videos (or films from 1928 and 1929) to use "only" the sounds for my podcast. But this is what I am facing, as Google AI pointed out.

(1. While the copyright has expired, physical access to original reels or high-quality masters may still be managed by specific institutions:

2. University of South Carolina (MIRC): Holds a large portion of the Fox Movietone News collection. While the content is public domain, they may charge service or lab fees for high-resolution transfers of their physical film assets.

3. Why the Audio is Included
Sound-on-Film Integration: Unlike standalone music records (which have a different 100-year protection term), sounds that "accompany a motion picture" are tied to the film's copyright status. Since the films from 1928 and 1929 are now in the public domain, their integrated audio tracks are as well.

Free Use: You can legally copy, redistribute, and adapt public domain content for a podcast without paying licensing fees or seeking permission from Fox or the University of South Carolina.

4. Practical Considerations for Your Podcast

Attribution: While not legally required for public domain works, it is standard practice to credit the source (e.g., "Audio courtesy of Fox Movietone News, 1929").
Source Quality: If you download clips from free digital archives like the University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC), you are free to use them. However, if you require a high-resolution, broadcast-quality master directly from an archive, they may charge service or transfer fees.

Third-Party Restorations: Be careful not to use audio from a modern documentary that has significantly cleaned up, enhanced, or added new narration to the historical clip, as those specific additions may be copyrighted.)

I know this might sound confusing, as it is to me. The thing is, I am a little hesitant to use the audio from these films or YouTube videos for now.

If anyone has any advice on Public Domain Train Sound films or recordings, please let me know.

This should help with audio recordings: https://library.mi.edu/musiccopyright/duration. The site is geared towards us musicians but it's a good synopsis for all audio recordings.

I didn't look up film and images but search for film copyright duration. Here's the whole ball of wax: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html

Second edit: In a nutshell, if it is older than 95 year, expiring on December 31, then it should be in the public domain. It should still require a bit of due diligence on your part to be sure.

As to the keepers of the archives or retail sources, they will likely have some sort of licensing agreement to use their materials. After all, it costs money to maintain those archives.

I've used other peoples materials that only carry an "implied" copyright (not officially registered thru the copyright office but does carry a copyright) but I always ask for permission in writing.

I'm not certain whether or not this is relevant to your discussion.

But the reality is that most railroad sounds used in the earliest sound cinema--I would suggest until the 1940s or so--were recorded and dubbed in separately. Some studios worked quite hard to record accurate sounds; others were quite lackadaisical about the whole thing and overly dependent upon stock footage and audio. The latter is how you get the occasional sight of a movie's train leaving with a steam locomotive and arriving behind a diesel at the terminal, or random mismatches between film and audio in the use of stock footage.

The book Sounds of Railways and Their Recording by Peter Handford (1980) includes a section on his career with the British movie industry and the occasional challenges of accurately capturing sound for the cinema.

100 years for sound recordings. That being said I don't think I ever heard of a case where somebody was sued or issued a DMCA over a sound effect, usually they just care about the music. It's so complicated that even a company that viciously protects its intellectual property doesn't seem to pursue it. Case in point I uploaded Steamboat Willie when it became public domain, ironically I was in Disney world when I did it. At first YouTube allowed me to have it but I had a caveat saying that the sound was still covered under copyright and therefore Disney would receive ad revenue but then that was dropped. So it's very unlikely anything would come of it.

I stand by my statements. Do your own research just in case. Firms in the entertainment industry are defending their copyrights aggressively. For example, Universal Music Group is going after everything, and I mean everything, even obvious cases of legal fair use or unpaid promotion, and believe it or not, expired copyrights. On Youtube, they file a copyright claim and take your monetization. If you dispute the claim, you lose as the claimant gets to make the determination. When you lose, it's a copyright strike. Three strikes and you're out. Their lawyers are standing by....

Oh.... One more thing. Be careful of using a performance of something in the public domain. For example, compositions by Bach and Mozart are in the public domain. However, a recording made by a symphony orchestra within past 95 years is still under copyright. It's gonna work the same way with film.

Just to show you how aggressively this works:

If you were one of the smart/lucky ones who recorded the original BBC series "Great Railway Journeys of the World" on the BBC or PBS, You may remember the UK episode "Confessions of a Train Spotter" starring Michael Palin as he traipsed about the British Rail network, including a visit to the Rainhill Trials Anniversary and the "Great Calvacade" held there in 1979. During that video of the parade of steamers, the original BBC show featured the Beatles' gentle, all-acoustic 1964 hit "And I Love Her." A perfect fit for a documentary about rail enthusiasts, if you ask me.

But in subsequent commercial re-releases for home video, and presumably any BBC rebroadcasts of this show, that music was replaced, either by "martial" brass band music, or, as heard here, by some ethereal, "New Age-y" music:
https://youtu.be/mYi1qLUAJJI?t=587
In addition, at least one loco--a Stanier "Black Five" whose distinctive "hooter" whistle punctuated the playing of the Beatles' song--has been cut from that showing of the Calvacade.

We know why. I think the BBC justified use of the original Beatles' song for the first broadcast, but the Beatles and subsequent rights owners (including Michael Jackson, Sony, Apple, and the McCartney/Lennon partnership/estate) have been notorious for exorbitant demands for the use of their music. I personally know of one musical group that, almost as a joke, finished a long medly on a live concert recording with the opening verse from "With a Little Help From My Friends." The producer for the record label later privately told me that the royalty demands from Michael Jackson/ATV Music (the copyright holders at the time), even after they were negotiated downwards, more than wiped out any profits for either the band or the label, and forced them not to re-issue that live album.