The Brief

Communities big and small are trying to rein in climate change. But many people working on these climate solutions are running into a big obstacle: falsehoods and conspiracy theories about their work. So what does this mean for fighting global warming?

To talk about the current state of climate disinformation, we checked in with three NPR reporters who have reported on climate, disinformation and the media — and they can answer our questions: Climate solutions reporter Julia Simon, media correspondent David Folkenflik, and reporter Huo Jingnan, who writes about conspiracy theories among other things.

This was adapted from a roundtable discussion on All Things Considered.

What kind of false narratives about climate are we talking about?

Julia Simon: Climate disinformation in the past — sometimes paid for by fossil fuel interests — often related to false ideas that global warming is a scam or that the threat is overblown. Those falsehoods are still around, but what we're seeing a lot more of these days are attacks on climate solutions even if we don't always know who funds them. Think attacks on renewables. False ideas that wind turbines cause cancer or cause birth defects in animals. Disinformation may be spreading because solutions are really spreading.

For instance, this weekend we'll have a story about a trend in urban planning called 15-minute cities — designing cities so that you access amenities in a short walk, bike ride or trip on public transport. Now there's a conspiracy theory saying that this is a way to restrict people's movement or to trap people in an open-air prison.

Podcaster Joe Rogan spoke about it on his show last month. "You'll essentially be contained unless you get permission to leave," Rogan said, "That's the idea they're starting to roll out in Europe."

That is false.

Earlier this week the U.K. transport minister Mark Harper used some of the language of conspiracy theories when talking about 15-minute cities at the conservative Tory party conference. "What is sinister and what we shouldn't tolerate," Harper said, "is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops."

It is false that local governments in the U.K. are deciding how often citizens can go shopping.

Huo Jingnan: The false narrative surrounding 15-minute cities is but one part of a larger sprawling conspiracy theory called the Great Reset. The theory goes that a shadowy global elite — often Jewish — wants to strip away ordinary people's freedoms and make us live a life of deprivation. Under this theory, 15-minute cities are a ploy to take away people's freedom to move around.

More about false narratives about climate change:

• An activist group is spreading misinformation to stop solar projects in rural America
• Misinformation is derailing renewable energy projects across the United States
• How rumors and conspiracy theories got in the way of Maui's fire recovery

The buildings of downtown Los Angeles are partially obscured because of smog.

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What is the role of the media in all this?

David Folkenflik: Different kinds of false information spread in different ways. But if you're considering misleading claims about climate — that's predominantly on the right. And that involves an information ecosphere defined by Joe Rogan, as we heard above, but also Alex Jones, Breitbart, the Daily Wire, the Daily Mail, the New York Post, and above all Fox News.

The funny thing is they are at once testers and popularizers of things that have gotten some traction online, and then you hear prominent figures on the right picking up the melody.

Back when he was on Fox earlier this year, Tucker Carlson made utterly unsubstantiated claims about dead whales coming ashore on New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts beaches.

Folkenflik: But you hear versions of it from former President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — once it passes audition, it makes the rounds.

More about the role of media:

• After a deadly Capitol riot, Fox News stays silent on stars' incendiary rhetoric
• Tucker Carlson built an audience for conspiracies at Fox. Where does it go now?
• Conspiracy theories are having a moment. It's bad for democracy

How does fear-mongering affect the actual implementation of climate solutions?

Huo: It is a distraction from the issues we need to work on. If these narratives ring true to you, you might think that climate activists aren't really talking about climate but about something else, so much so they could be secret agents of the government trying to take away your freedom.

One interesting example of a strawman here is one of the subplots of the great reset conspiracy theory, which is that the government wants to force people to eat insects. Including insects in the human diet has been an idea on the edges of climate circles. The mainstream idea is simply to eat less meat. But it attracted more attention over the years because many news outlets — including NPR — are easily intrigued by the idea of eating something seen as exotic.

And that gets turned into raw material for conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones in March 2022:

Simon: And a muddied information landscape about climate solutions can sometimes complicate the process of getting them enacted, says Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

"In the end, it actually doesn't matter if 99% of the public believe in climate change," King says, "if you're able to embed real fear and seeds of doubt about the solutions that are on the table you end up with the same outcome, which is no legislative agenda, no meaningful policy proposals, no local action."

More about how fear-mongering affects solutions:

• From 4chan to international politics, a bug-eating conspiracy theory goes mainstream
• Gas stoves became part of the culture wars within a week. Here's why

What sort of impact do these conspiracy theories have on the people in the field trying to work on climate solutions?

Simon: I met with Carlos Moreno, a Franco-Colombian professor who developed this idea of the 15-minute city — these more walkable, bikeable neighborhoods that conspiracy theorists think are preludes to open-air prisons. Moreno says he's gotten death threats, and so have other scientists and researchers.

Moreno says the attacks give his colleagues a reluctance to publish articles about their work. And he says this is what the conspiracy theorists want: to silence them. And we've seen harassment and threats based on conspiracy theories targeting climate scientists and meteorologists for years.

More on the impact of conspiracy theories:

• Maui residents grapple with rumors about the fire and aid as they try to rebuild
• A meteorologist got threats for his climate coverage. His new job is about solutions

Can anything break the cycle of disinformation or rumors?

Folkenflik: It's not in the interest of Fox News and others who benefit financially from stoking outrage and, by and large, also have partisan rooting interests. In a few instances, there have been defamation cases against those media outlets — but those all come from specific people and institutions who claim they've been knowingly harmed and defamation law isn't going to solve the wider issue of spreading false claims about climate research and solutions.

For other journalists and others, it's tricky — you do need to address falsehoods and fact-check them. But by fact-checking, you're also sometimes elevating these ideas that may not get widespread currency. News organizations, including NPR, generally try to balance those imperatives as they plan out coverage.

Huo: When it comes to social media, the platforms can change how they label, recommend and moderate content to change what users see and how they interact with platforms. Studies by researchers who were able to run experiments on Facebook and Instagram during the 2020 election showed that changing the algorithm changes user behavior, sometimes leading to less time spent on the platforms.

There's also a practice called pre-bunking, like a form of inoculation against bad information, which has two strands. One way involves preventatively unraveling specific false claims before they reach a critical mass. Another is essentially news literacy training, to help equip people with tools to evaluate such claims critically. These things have to be done in a way that appeals to the people they're trying to reach, not patronize them, and also acknowledge that known facts sometimes change, as they have for COVID-19.

While we do not have enough experimental studies on altering platform design to draw conclusions beyond specific interventions, experts in the field place hope in them. A lot of people put stock in hearing from those they trust (like friends) and those they admire (like influencers and celebrities). And they need to absorb it in settings where they seek such content out. That said, some major platforms are dialing back how much news they serve up and how much attention they want to spend on moderating. There's no single easy or widely embraced answer yet.

More on disinformation and rumors:

• False information is everywhere. 'Pre-bunking' tries to head it off early
• Seth Rich's killing was exploited on Fox News and online. His parents are fed up
• Fake news: How to spot misinformation

It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids.

Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.

The risks extend beyond obvious concerns like dehydration and heatstroke.

"Heat makes people slower to react and worse at making decisions," says Adam Dean, a labor economist at George Washington University. "That means farmworkers driving a tractor or a construction worker operating equipment are more likely to have a fatal accident on a hot day."

But a suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.

The studies all use different datasets and methods but come to a similar conclusion, says Barrak Alahmad, an environmental health scientist at Harvard University and an expert on occupational health risks.

"States with heat standards have lower risk of heat injuries, of heat fatalities and other outcomes compared to states that don't have these heat standards," Alahmad says.

The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.

The outcome "delivers a clear message," says Dean, the study's lead author. "Heat standards, if they're adopted and effectively enforced, can significantly reduce worker deaths."

The new wave of studies comes as the federal government is considering creating new national rules to protect workers from excessive heat. Several states and local jurisdictions are also considering new standards.

The federal rules, first proposed under Biden, are now under review by the Trump administration. Their future is uncertain.

While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized for decades that heat poses risks to workers, there is active debate among worker advocates and business groups about how best to provide protections: via stringent, highly specific regulations, or with broader guidelines that allow employers to take the lead in crafting efforts specific to their own industries.

The new studies could help inform any new rules, says Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary of labor at OSHA under the Obama administration. Though the basic measures to protect workers have been well-known for decades, it's invaluable, he says, to "show that when a state actually implements these requirements that they actually have saved lives."

The California example

Federal regulators first noted that heat could put American workers at risk in the 1970s and '80s. But for years, OSHA prioritized regulating other workplace hazards. Heat issues were managed under the agency's more generalized rules, such as the "general duty clause," which required employers to maintain workplaces "free from recognized hazards."

But some states, like California, decided to go further. In 2005, after the highly publicized deaths of several farmworkers due to heat exposure, California passed the nation's first state-level regulations to protect outdoor workers from excessive heat. Requirements kicked off when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees Fahrenheit (the threshold has since been lowered further).

The rules set out to provide some simple protections: access to water, shade and rest on hot days.

For many years, California was the only state with such heat rules, setting up a natural experiment: Would heat-related worker deaths fall in California, compared to neighboring states with similar weather conditions but no such protections?

The new study suggests that, at first, the rules didn't make much of a difference. During the first few years, researchers did not find a decrease in heat-related death rates in California compared to neighboring states.

"When California first adopted a standard in 2005, it was ineffective," Dean says.

But that would soon change.

In 2010, the state strengthened the rule and deaths began to drop, the study found — eventually falling by more than 30%, with even more dramatic reductions in recent years.

The changes to the rule, Dean says, were critical. Though the initial rules required employers to provide water and shade, in practice, inspectors sometimes found problems — like undrinkable water.

So, the state clarified. Water had to be drinkable and free. And there needed to be enough shade for all workers during breaks. California also ramped up workplace inspections and launched an educational campaign to train the state's many outdoor workers about their rights.

"A critical lesson is that merely passing a heat standard is not enough," Dean says. "It was only after the state launched a statewide enforcement campaign that we started to see deaths decrease relative to the surrounding states."

The rules could have been even more effective with more consistent enforcement, says Garrett Brown, who until 2014 worked for Cal/OSHA, the state agency tasked with enforcing the rule. Even though the number of inspections increased, he says, limited staffing caused ongoing enforcement challenges.

It could have been "even more health protective for workers if there was an even more robust enforcement program," Brown says.

A growing body of evidence

The California study joins two other analyses with similar findings published in the past year.

Together, they provide important insights that could help in the design of future rules, says Alahmad. He led an analysis of heat-influenced worker injuries, published earlier this year, which found that states with heat rules had lower injury rates than those without.

Another recent study found workers' compensation claims were lower in states with heat standards compared to those without.

The next step for researchers is to suss out the most important parts of those regulations, Alahmad says: "What elements are actually most effective?"

That will be key information for regulators across the country. More than a dozen states and cities proposed new heat protection rules in 2025.

Edited by Rachel Waldholz

The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards are out. It's a lot of films, and we are here to help! You can see the full list of nominees here, and read our takeaways here.

Below, you can find details and coverage of the 14 films nominated in six major categories: best picture, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, and best director. Dive in!

Sinners

The gist: Ryan Coogler's movie stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned when a bloodthirsty menace appears outside. (Vampires — we're talking about vampires.)

16 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song, best picture, production design, sound, visual effects, original screenplay

Where to see it: Stream it on HBO Max and Prime Video. Rent or buy it on Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 'Sinners' gives Michael B. Jordan two roles of a lifetime
📖 Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are symbiotic. 'Sinners' is the latest proof
📖 In 'Sinners,' the blues is a portal between this world and the next
🎧 In 'Sinners,' there will be blood, booze, and the blues

Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Michael B. Jordan expands his cinematic universe

One Battle After Another

The gist: Paul Thomas Anderson's action thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed up ex-revolutionary whose past comes to haunt him. DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor are all nominated for their performances.

13 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, another actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, directing, film editing, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay

Where to see it: In theaters. Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Prescient and political, 'One Battle After Another' is one of the year's best films
📖 'One Battle After Another' wants a revolution
🎧 'One Battle After Another' is revolutionary — and revelatory

Stories and interviews
🎧 Chase Infiniti reflects on her breakthrough role

Frankenstein

The gist: Guillermo del Toro's take on the Mary Shelley classic. Jacob Elordi plays the creature and Oscar Isaac is the scientist.

9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay

Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 Frankenstein is the monster (movie) Guillermo del Toro was born to bring to life
🎧 Only Guillermo del Toro could've made this 'Frankenstein'

Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Guillermo del Toro says his future was set the first time he saw 'Frankenstein'

Marty Supreme

The gist: Timothée Chalamet plays a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s.

9 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, best picture, production design, original screenplay

Where to see it: In theaters.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Timothée Chalamet brings a lot to the table in 'Marty Supreme'
🎧 In 'Marty Supreme,' Timothée Chalamet is good at being supremely annoying

Stories and interviews
📖🎧 The real ping pong champion — and hustler — who inspired 'Marty Supreme'

Sentimental Value

The gist: Stellan Skarsgård is a filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters, proving that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are all nominated for their performances.

9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, actress in a leading role, actress in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, directing, film editing, best international feature film, best picture, original screenplay

Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 'Sentimental Value' is a family drama that lets everyone off the hook too easily
🎧 Finding 'Sentimental Value' in a broken family

Stories and interviews
🎧 Stellan Skarsgård talks about his starring role in the new movie, 'Sentimental Value'

Hamnet

The gist: A young English couple meets, falls in love, has children and suffers an unspeakable tragedy. One of them happens to be William Shakespeare, who goes on to write Hamlet. Jessie Buckley plays his wife.

8 nominations: actress in a leading role, casting, costume design, directing, original score, best picture, production design, adapted screenplay

Where to see it: In theaters.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Forget 'Shakespeare in Love' — 'Hamnet' explores Shakespeare in grief
📖 The real 'Hamnet' died centuries ago, but this novel is timeless
🎧 'Hamnet' is a Shakespearean tearjerker that pulls no punches

Bugonia

The gist: Yorgos Lanthimos' flick stars Emma Stone as a high-powered CEO who is kidnapped by conspiracy theorists and accused of being an alien.

4 nominations: actress in a leading role, original score, best picture, adapted screenplay

Where to see it: Stream it on Peacock. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 'Bugonia' may or may not be about aliens; it's definitely about alienation
📖🎧 Yorgos Lanthimos is messing with us again. His movie 'Bugonia' will keep you guessing
🎧 Conspiracies aren't even the weirdest thing in 'Bugonia'

Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Conspiracy theorists fuel 'Bugonia' climate horror
📖🎧 Would you shave your head for free movie tickets? 'Bugonia' wants to make a buzz

F1

The gist: Brad Pitt plays a veteran F1 driver who clashes with a young hotshot, played by Damson Idris.

4 nominations: film editing, best picture, sound, visual effects

Where to see it: Stream it on Apple TV. Buy it on Prime Video and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Brad Pitt plays a veteran racer who won't slow down in 'F1'
🎧 Is there vroom in your summer for 'F1 The Movie'?

The Secret Agent

The gist: Set in 1977, Wagner Moura plays a former researcher caught in the political turmoil of the Brazilian military dictatorship.

4 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, best international feature film, best picture

Where to see it: In theaters.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Let 'The Secret Agent' fill you in on what it's like to live under a dictatorship
🎧 Actor Wagner Moura talks about his role in the new Brazilian film, 'The Secret Agent'

Train Dreams

The gist: Joel Edgerton plays a logger and railroad worker in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th century.

4 nominations: cinematography, original song, best picture, adapted screenplay

Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
🎧 The new film 'Train Dreams' is almost unbearably beautiful
🎧 'Train Dreams' evokes frontier life, fate and death

Stories and interviews
🎧 Director and co-writer Clint Bentley talks about his film, 'Train Dreams'

Blue Moon

The gist: Directed by Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke plays lyricist Lorenz Hart on the worst night of his life — the opening of Oklahoma! on Broadway — after his long-term collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has forged a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.

2 nominations: actor in a leading role, original screenplay

Where to see it: Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 A once-in-a-'Blue Moon' Broadway breakup
🎧 'Blue Moon' will bewitch, bother and bewilder you

Stories and interviews
📖🎧 'Blue Moon' pushed Ethan Hawke to his limit: 'That's a thrilling spot to be in'
📖🎧 Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater find the heartbreak in 'Blue Moon'

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

The gist: Rose Byrne plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work.

1 nomination: actress in a leading role

Where to see it: Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
🎧 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You' shows off Rose Byrne's dramatic chops

Stories and interviews
🎧Mary Bronstein discusses motherhood in her movie 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'

Song Sung Blue

The gist: Kate Hudson plays a down-on-her luck musician who teams up with Hugh Jackman to form a Neil Diamond tribute band.

1 nomination: actress in a leading role

Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
🎧 Filmmaker Craig Brewer channels his inner Neil Diamond in 'Song Sung Blue'

Weapons

The gist: Seventeen children leave their homes and vanish into the suburban night in this horror film.

1 nomination: actress in a supporting role

Where to see it: Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.

Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 17 children vanish into the night — 'Weapons' is terrific and terrifying
📖🎧 'Weapons' exposes the dark underbelly of American suburbia
🎧 In 'Weapons', the kids aren't at all right, not in the slightest, nope

Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.

From tape collector to curator

Whammy founder Erik Varho always wanted to open his own store — he just didn’t have a clue as what it would be. A die-hard videotape lover, Varho never stopped collecting them, even after major releases ceased printing in 2006.

Shelves full of VHS tapes inside Whammy Analog Media.

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In 2020, fresh out of work and with VHS tapes lining the walls of his studio apartment, he started selling his tapes via Instagram.

“I was pleasantly surprised that people were actually out there buying them,” Varho said.

With the success of his online sales, Varho was able to open a brick-and-mortar store in 2022. Varho intended it to just be a retail store, but the space, he thought, was perfect for an indoor screen.

“I just kind of dove headfirst into the microcinema aspect of it,” Varho said.

Whammy’s been hosting events celebrating that grainy quality of the Video Home System — or VHS — ever since.

A crowd watching a projected VHS film inside Whammy Analog Media.

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A small crowd gathers to watch a film inside Whammy Analog Media.

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Meet me at the swap meet

One regular event is the Whammy VHS Swap Meet. The quarterly meet-up brings together video vendors from across Southern California to showcase their wares.

Bad Taste specializes in lowbrow horror and cult films, while Cinefile Liquidations sells vintage posters, records and other film ephemera.

“It's just kind of a place for people to display their craziest, weirdest, rarest finds and just have a place to talk about them and hang out,” Varho said.

Those rare finds include Image of the Beast from 1981, the third installment in a Christian apocalyptic thriller series about the rise of the antichrist and an evil A.I.

Whammy recently projected the film as part of its “Stuck on VHS” series, which showcases works that were only released direct to video.

A rewinding renewal

Shoppers look through various stacks of tape inside Whammy Analog Media.

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Besides an entire store, Varho also owns a storage unit filled to the brim with VHS tapes. Those who RSVP to Sunday's swap meet get a free mystery VHS tape upon entry.

He says the most frequent question he gets is if they sell VCRs. They do, but they run out pretty quickly.

Varho takes it as a good sign and says lately customers have been skewing younger and younger.

"People who didn't even grow up with VHS who are just interested in exploring movies in that way. It's a fun time to be into VHS for sure,” Varho said.

Sunday's event includes a screening of a mystery VHS.

“I can’t reveal what we’re playing, but it’s always stuff that is going to be attention-grabbing and usually pretty silly,” Varho said.

Details

Whammy! VHS Swap Meet
Location: 2514 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (in the back)
When: Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
Free admission, RSVP here

One of the most unusual of the creative treasures to enter the public domain this month is King of Jazz. The plotless, experimental 1930 musical film shot in early Technicolor centers on influential bandleader Paul Whiteman, nicknamed "The King of Jazz."

In one memorable scene, the portly, mustachioed Whiteman opens a small bag and winks at the camera as miniature musicians file out one after another like a colony of ants and take their places on an ornate, table-top bandstand.

A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest — an annual competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain. This means creators can use these materials freely, without copyright restrictions. In 2026, works created in 1930 entered the public domain.

Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as Whiteman's winking face looks on.

"I wanted to transform the figures and bodies into more dream-like shapes through collage and looping and repetition," said Seattle-based filmmaker Andrea Hale, who created the piece in collaboration with composer Greg Hardgrave. For video artists, Hale said discovering what's new in the public domain each January is a thrill. "We're always looking for things to draw from," Hale said. "Opening that up to a bigger spread of materials is amazing. That's the dream."

A massive repository of content

The Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based nonprofit library behind the contest, digitizes and provides public access to a massive repository of content, including many materials used by contest participants. "These materials have often just been in film canisters for decades," said digital librarian Brewster Kahle, who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.

This year's submissions range from a reworking of the 1930 film The Blue Angel starring Betty Boop — another public domain entrant this year — instead of Marlene Dietrich, to an AI-generated take on the 1930 Nancy Drew book The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

Kahle said the Internet Archive received nearly 280 entries this time around, the highest number since the competition launched six years ago. "Things are not just musty, old archival documentation of the past," Kahle said. "People are bringing them to life in new and different ways, without fear of being sued."

The public domain in the era of AI

Lawsuits have become a growing concern for artists and copyright holders, especially with the rise of generative AI. Recent years have seen a surge in online video takedowns and copyright infringement disputes.

Media companies are trying to address the problem through deals with tech firms, such as Disney and OpenAI's plan, announced late last year, to introduce a service allowing users to create short videos based on copyrighted characters, including Cinderella and Darth Vader.

"On the one hand, these licensing agreements seem quite a clean solution to thorny legal questions," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "But what's exciting about the public domain is that material, after a long, robust 95-year copyright term, is just simply free for anyone — without a team of lawyers, without a licensing agreement, without having to work for Disney or OpenAI — to just put online," Jenkins said.

Jenkins also pointed out an interesting twist for people who create new works using materials from the public domain. "You actually get a copyright in your remix," she said. "Just like Disney has copyrights in all of its remakes of wonderful public domain works like Snow White or Cinderella." (The Brothers Grimm popularized these two characters in their 19th century collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. But their roots are much deeper, going back to European folklore collections of the 1600s and beyond.)

However, this only applies to works created by humans — U.S. copyright law currently doesn't recognize works authored by AI. And Jenkins further cautioned that creators only get a copyright in their new creative contributions to the remix, and not the underlying material.

This year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest winner Andrea Hale said she's using a Creative Commons license for Rhapsody, Reimagined. This means the filmmaker retains the copyright to her work but grants permissions that allow other people to freely use, share, and build upon it. "I'm keeping with the spirit of the public domain," Hale said.

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