Tom Lehrer’s passing this weekend at age 97 has rightfully sparked tributes to his brilliant satirical songs. But amid all the well-deserved praise for “The Elements” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” there’s another aspect of Lehrer’s legacy that deserves equal celebration: his decision to dump his entire catalog into the public domain.
In an era when artists’ estates routinely extend copyright protections as long as legally possible, Lehrer’s approach was not just generous—it was revolutionary. In an age where copyright terms are discussed in notation known as “life plus…” Lehrer agreed to free up everything while he was still around to see what people would do with it.
We first wrote about his thinking on this way back when. It came out when someone had created a fan channel on YouTube posting all his music. Fearing that Lehrer would be upset, the guy (Erik Meyn) called up Lehrer to apologize, leading to this amazing conversation, in which Lehrer told him he was fine with it and didn’t care at all what people did with his music.
TL: Well, you see, I’m fine with that channel.
EM: You’re very kind. But my question is: Who in your family will take care of your copyright and your songs in the distant future?
TL: I don’t have a family.
EM: OK, but what do you think will happen to the channel and your songs? And if you have someone who will act on your behalf, could you give them my name in case they’d want the channel taken down?
TL: Yes, but there’s no need to remove that channel.
EM: I was just wondering what will happen in the future, because you’re certainly going to continue to sell records.
TL: Well, I don’t need to make money after I’m dead. These things will be taken care of.
EM: I feel like I gave away some of your songs to public domain without even asking you, and that wasn’t very nice of me.
TL: But I’m fine with that, you know.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Lehrer made this more official and announced that he was putting all his lyrics in the public domain:
I, Tom Lehrer, and the Tom Lehrer Trust 2000, hereby grant the following permission:
All the lyrics on this website, whether published or unpublished, copyrighted or uncopyrighted, may be downloaded and used in any manner whatsoever, without requiring any further permission from me or any payment to me or to anyone else.
Some lyrics written by Tom Lehrer to copyrighted music by others are included herein, but of course such music may not be used without permission of the copyright owners. (The translated songs may be found in their original languages on YouTube.)
In other words, all the lyrics herein should be treated as though they were in the public domain.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music and publish or perform their versions without fear of legal action.
But Lehrer wasn’t done. While his 2020 declaration covered lyrics, some raised questions about the publishing and composition rights (which was a bit more complex, given that many of his songs were to other’s music). Rather than let lawyers sort it out after his death, Lehrer took care of that too. In 2022, he put everything else he’d ever done into the public domain as well, rewriting his declaration to be absolutely clear:
I, Tom Lehrer, and the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions:
All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain.
The latter includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages.
Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.
In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.
Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved.
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
The website then became a treasure trove: MP3s of recordings, PDFs of lyrics, everything. Despite Lehrer’s warnings that he’d probably shut it down, it remains up today. And here’s the beauty of his public domain decision—even if it does disappear, anyone can recreate it without asking permission or paying licensing fees.
There are plenty of reasons to celebrate Tom Lehrer, and most will be covered in other tributes. But his public domain gift deserves special recognition. At a time when most artists’ estates are extending copyright terms, creating new licensing schemes, and finding ever more creative ways to monetize decades-old work, Lehrer went the opposite direction.
He didn’t just talk about artistic freedom—he actually freed his art.