Public Domain is a status given to publications, creative works, or other types of works that are no longer protected by copyright. No one legally owns these works, so they can be reused or repurposed by anyone!
Why do works enter the public domain?
How can public domain works be used?
If I reuse a public domain work, do I need to cite it? Although these works are free of copyright restrictions, attributing a public domain work is good practice from the standpoints of academic integrity and the respect of intellectual property. Using a public domain work does not violate copyright, but failing to attribute it or wrongfully claiming authorship is considered plagiarism as opposed to copyright infringement (Crews, 2020, pg. 58). Therefore, citing a public domain work is just the ethically right thing to do!
Disclaimer: The FAU Libraries and its faculty, staff, and administration are not attorneys and cannot interpret the law. This information is provided for educational purposes only and does not substitute for advice from legal counsel.
Source: Crews, K. D. (2020). Copyright law for librarians and educators: Creative strategies and practical solutions (4th Ed.). Chicago: ALA Editions.
Related Research Guides and Information
U.S. Copyright Office & Federal Law
Copyright Clearance Center (2019). What is public domain? [YouTube Video]. https://youtu.be/PMp_-OX15Jc
Public Domain in Plain Language
Determine If a Work is in The Public Domain
Various web pages and meta-lists include links to public domain works that often may include works with copyright protection.
Recommended: check on any copyright information that may be available on any work of interest to be sure it is actually in the public domain, and document it.
Web Sites and Meta-Lists
Books and Texts
Images and Museums
Music (Sound, Sheet Music)
Maps
Copyright by
Copyright law was once an esoteric backwater, the special province of professional authors, publishers, and media companies. This is no longer the case. In the age of social media and cloud storage, we have become a copying and sharing culture. Much of our everyday communication, work, and entertainment now directly involves copyright law. Copyright law and policy are ferociously contested. Record labels, movie studios, book publishers, newspapers, and many authors rage that those who share music, video, text, and images over the Internet are "stealing" their property. By contrast, copyright industry critics celebrate digital technology's potential to make the universe of movies, music, books, and art accessible anytime and anywhere - and to empower individuals the world over to express themselves by sharing and remixing those works. These critics argue that excessive copyright enforcement threatens that promise and stifles creativity. In Copyright: What Everyone Needs to Know�, Neil Netanel explains the concepts needed to understand the heated debates about copyright law and policy. He identifies the combatants, unpacks their arguments, and illuminates what is at stake in the debates over copyright's present and future.
The Public Domain by
Permission to distribute by CC-BY-NC-SA.
Why the public domain is vitally important and what we must do to protect it In this enlightening book James Boyle describes what he calls the range wars of the information age--today's heated battles over intellectual property. Boyle argues that just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen should also understand intellectual property law. Why? Because intellectual property rights mark out the ground rules of the information society, and today's policies are unbalanced, unsupported by evidence, and often detrimental to cultural access, free speech, digital creativity, and scientific innovation. Boyle identifies as a major problem the widespread failure to understand the importance of the public domain--the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee. The public domain is as vital to innovation and culture as the realm of material protected by intellectual property rights, he asserts, and he calls for a movement akin to the environmental movement to preserve it. With a clear analysis of issues ranging from Jefferson's philosophy of innovation to musical sampling, synthetic biology and Internet file sharing, this timely book brings a positive new perspective to important cultural and legal debates. If we continue to enclose the "commons of the mind," Boyle argues, we will all be the poorer.
The Public Domain by
Find free content and save on permission fees! Millions of creative works--books, artwork, photos, songs, movies, and more--are available copyright-free in the public domain. Whether your tastes run more Jane Austen or Jane Eyre, Beethoven or Irving Berlin, Edvard Munch or Claude Monet, you'll find inspiration in The Public Domain. The only book that helps you find and identify which creative works are protected by copyright and which are not, The Public Domain covers the rules for: writings music art photography architecture maps choreography movies video software databases collections The 8th edition is completely updated with hundreds of new online and digitized public domain resources. The book covers the latest legal developments regarding copyright and the public domain--from state copyright policies to free and low-cost legal advice for creative types to copyright issues regarding photos lacking human authorship, and much more!
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