The Copyright status of the Oz books along with films affects their use by non-canonical authors, imitators, and creators of fan fiction.
All of the books of L. Frank Baum have passed out of copyright protection and entered the public domain with their plots and characters available for general use. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900 entered the public domain in 1956. Baum's other thirteen Oz books entered the public domain between 1960 and 1996. The firm of Reilly & Britton (later Reilly and Lee), which published all of the "Famous Forty" Oz books, only renewed certain titles depending on re-releases.
As of 2024, this number stands at 29/40 that have had their copyrights expire with 11 still protected.
In general, the copyright law that prevailed through most of the 20th century protected published works for 28 years, with an option for renewal for another 28 years. The law was amended in 1976 and 1998 so the period of copyright protection was extended. As of 2024, this puts everything before 1929 in the public domain as 95 years after. There have been discussions to lower the threshold, including one piece of legislation that if passed as written would reduce it to 56 years or before 1966. This would be a significant revision but unlikely to pass because of corporate interests and the political background of it targeting Disney in particular.
Previous versions of the law, namely the 28 year minimum rule of 1909 has caused some confusion as there was a practice of reprinting Oz books many times without providing any date or edition information other than the original copyright date. This has confused book collectors who have mistaken later versions for first editions. The company reprinted Baum's pre-1919 books with the "Reilly & Lee" imprint, instead of the "Reilly & Britton" imprint of the original editions with no other indication that the books were later editions. Canadian editions of the Oz books were issued by the firm Copp, Clark.
Book Rights[]
Oz[]
During the 1950s and 1990s, original sequels to Baum's books could only use select material depending on what by then had entered the public domain. Random House released five "Brand New Oz Adventures" with four in 1985 and the fifth in 1986 primarily using Ozma of Oz as a basis with it becoming available in 1983. The first four had to depict Dorothy as still living in Kansas because The Emerald City of Oz was still protected until the next year.
The situation is somewhat different for the works of Ruth Plumly Thompson as some have entered the public domain while others have not. Mark E. Haas ran into a copyright problem when he published his first Oz book, The Medicine Man of Oz in 2000. He used the character Herby the Medicine Man from The Giant Horse of Oz (1928), which wouldn't enter the public domain until 2024. Robin Hess's first Oz book Toto and the Cats of Oz, remains unpublished because of similar copyright considerations.
Thompson's earliest books, The Royal Book of Oz (1921), Kabumpo in Oz (1922), The Cowardly Lion of Oz (1923), Grampa in Oz (1924), The Lost King of Oz (1925), The Hungry Tiger of Oz (1926), The Gnome King of Oz (1927), and most recently The Giant Horse of Oz (1928), are in the public domain. A few of Thompson's later Oz books did not have their copyrights renewed, and entered the public domain before the earlier ones did. This is true of her last five "Famous Forty" books: The Wishing Horse of Oz (1935), Captain Salt in Oz (1936), Handy Mandy in Oz (1937), The Silver Princess in Oz (1938), and Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz (1939).
As books published with copyright notice and later renewed between 1923-1963 retain protection for a total of 95 years. Thompson's remaining 'Famous Forty' works were all published between the years 1923 and 1934, so these works started to enter the public domain beginning in 2019 with The Cowardly Lion of Oz and continuing with each successive book on an annual basis until 2030 with no further extensions.
As of 2024, six out of Thompson's 21 Oz books which were included in the Famous Forty are still protected with the rights held by the L. Frank Baum Family Trust :
- Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz (1929/2025)
- The Yellow Knight of Oz (1930/2026)
- Pirates in Oz (1931/2027)
- The Purple Prince of Oz (1932/2028)
- Ojo in Oz (1933/2029)
- Speedy in Oz (1934/2030)
Her two books that were turned down and later published by The International Wizard of Oz Club in the 1970s will be protected until the 2060s and 2070s:
- Yankee in Oz (1972/2068)
- The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976/2072)
Additional books published by the Oz Club from other Famous Forty authors who had also their works turned down also have special rules pertaining to the text and illustrations. Those with artwork from Eric Shanower will be protected until 70 years after he passes away but the text has a year date already set with the exemption of The Runaway in Oz because he is credited as co-authoring the unfinished piece by John R. Neil:
- Rachel Cosgrove's The Wicked Witch of Oz (1993/text: 2069)
- Eloise Jarvis McGraw's The Rundelstone of Oz (2001/text: 2071)
The only other example of a similar rule is The Forbidden Fountain of Oz (1980/drawings: 2061) which only has the illustration year set because Dick Martin passed in 1990 while Lauren Lynn McGraw is still alive.
The heirs of John R. Neill have maintained the copyrights on his three Oz books which will be protected through the 2030s.
- The Wonder City of Oz - (1940/2036)
- The Scalawagons of Oz) (1941/2037)
- Lucky Bucky in Oz (1942/2038)
Jack Snow's two Oz novels, The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946) and The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949) were not renewed, so they have entered the public domain.
In addition to all of these, the two other remaining Famous Forty books still copyright protected are:
- Rachel Cosgrove's The Hidden Valley of Oz (1951/2047)
- Eloise Jarvis McGraw & Lauren Lynn McGraw's Merry Go Round in Oz (1963/2059)
Magic Land[]
There was a period of mixed copyright rules for the Magic Land books by Alexander Volkov which will now enter the public domain in 2048. This is because five of them were published in the Soviet Union before 1973 while modern Russia joined the Berne Convention in 1995. An author named Mary G. Langford went around this rule in 1969 when she translated Urfin Jus and His Wooden Soldiers into English as The Wooden Soldiers of Oz five years after its publication while March Laumer and Chris Dulabone released their own English versions of The Yellow Fog entitled The Yellow Fog of Oz and The Seven Underground Kings entitled The Seven Underground Kings of Oz in 1993. The rights for official translations were obtained by Peter Blystone.
For many of March Laumer's books, his publisher Vanitas Press in conjunction with Opium books decided to release PDF copies on a now defunct website that can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine, making them publicly available, if not public domain. This might have been done because the late author infringed on many copyrights, and perhaps avoided lawsuits by not being worth suing, plus publishing them in Hong Kong and Sweden. The Wikipedia page on this topic says: “he never saw any repercussions because his works were not considered significant enough to fight”.
There are some exceptions with modern authors allowing their books to appear on Project Gutenberg with fair use designation. Also Internet Archive has many copyrighted books available for viewing through a free account for usually an hour at a time.
As a Wiki, we provide full text versions of both Oz books and others associated which are in the public domain.
Film rights[]
Samuel Goldwyn purchased the film rights to the first Oz book in 1933. He sold the rights to the MGM studio in 1938, enabling the studio to create the classic 1939 film. The film rights to Baum's other 13 Oz books were purchased by Walt Disney in 1954. In the 1950s, Walt Disney himself attempted to develop a film, Rainbow Road to Oz, which would have been released while these copyrights were still valid but the Disney corporation eventually released films after their expiration including Return to Oz (1985) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Nine months after The Marvelous Land of Oz entered the public domain in 1960, Shirley Temple starred in her own adaptation as an episode of her Storybook series titled The Land of Oz (television).
All of the silent films are in the public domain, with The Wizard of Oz (1925) entering in 1954 without any extension.
The 1939 film will enter the public domain in 2035 as the long copyright holding by MGM and then Warner Brothers had impacts on later Oz adaptations as Return to Oz having to pay them to use the Ruby Slippers. Copyright experts made sure Oz the Great and Powerful was distinct from the film in order to be made and some merchandise for Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return had to be examined also.
Warner Bros. owning the exclusive rights to the 1939 film has led to direct-to-DVD films Tom and Jerry & the Wizard of Oz and its sequel Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz along with their series Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, all of which are able to use trademarked likenesses of the 1939 film's characters.
Copyright Issues[]
Using settings and characters while copyright is valid has led to some issues:
- The Laughing Dragon of Oz (1934): Maud Gage Baum sued her own son Frank Joslyn Baum as Whitman Publishing settled out of court and promised Reilly & Lee they would not publish anymore Oz books.
- The Blue Emperor of Oz (1966): First known fan-fiction. The prominent role of Jonathan Andrew Manley from The Hidden Valley of Oz, a work only 15 years old at the time, was a copyright infringement, as was the use of any characters from any Oz book later thanThe Marvelous Land of Oz. As Hidden Valley was out of print, and Blue Emperor never had a wide distribution, the matter was not pursued.
- The Number of the Beast (1980): Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction novel features a segment set in a vision of Oz, faithful to L. Frank Baum. While The Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz were in the public domain, the section also features characters introduced in the then-copyrighted works Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz, and The Scarecrow of Oz.
- How the Wizard Came to Oz/How the Wizard Saved Oz (1991-1993), novels by Donald Abbott: In the first volume, the characters Ku-Klip and Nimmie Amee appear, but couldn't be named because the copyright for The Tin Woodman of Oz did not expire until two years after the publication. In the second volume, King Pastoria's downfall is referenced, but happened differently than it did in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Lost King of Oz, which remained in copyright until 2021.
- The Magic Dishpan of Oz (1994) by Jeff Freedman features Planetty from The Silver Princess in Oz (1938) whose copyright expired in 1967. As Planetty's husband King Randy had appeared in an earlier work, The Purple Prince of Oz (1932) whereas that copyright has been renewed until 2028, so he is absent from Freedman's story.
- The Medicine Man of Oz (2000): As mentioned on this page, this book about Herby the Medicine Man was published while the author previously faced legal threats from the L. Frank Baum Family Trust.