Copyright |Copyright History|patents

Definition - public domain means that the creator of the work has given up or lost all rights to the work. It means that you may do anything with the work that you want definition - read it, copy it, publish it, change it.

This can occur in a variety of ways:

a. A copyright on a book, film, photograph, etc. expired

b. The author chose to not copyright the work but instead contributed it to the public domain.

c. The work was never eligible for copyright protection - like a work of the US government

d. Works published before copyright existed.

Other "free works"

There are also a large variety of works available that are not public domain but may be used. These include a variety of books and articles where the author allows you to use them in any way you desire as long as you do not change the item in any way and include the author byline. It also includes open source software where you can use the software in any way you want - including changing it - but with restrictions. The CD on software covers this in more detail.

Ownership rights and public domain - Just because a work is in the public domain does not mean you have unrestricted access to it. For instance, I own many books in my private library that are in the public domain. You do not have the right to use those particular copies just because they are in the public domain as they are privately owned.

Are all public domain materials free to get? No they are not. There are literally millions of works available but the owner may charge preparation fees to get you the materials. This would be common if you had an institution produce a copy of a work for you (or if you bought a copy in a used book store) and in the government. For instance, I recently purchased a database from the IRS. The information is public domain but I had to pay $500 to get them to prepare and send me the CD.

Size of public domain - No one really knows how large the public domain actually is as there are no definitive lists anywhere encompassing the entire public domain. However, estimates put it in the size of BILLIONS of items (documents, films, photos, architectural drawings, etc.) And these items encompass EVERY area of human learning.

With such a huge treasure trove, the biggest challenge of using public domain materials is to figure out exactly what you want to accomplish before you begin your search. If you don't, it is very easy to get distracted by the wide variety of interesting items.