Public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired,[1] been forfeited,[2] expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.[3] Because no one holds the exclusive rights, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission.[3][4]
As examples, the works of
As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country. The term public domain may also be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the public sphere or commons, including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", and the "information commons".[7]
History
Although the term domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept can be traced back to the ancient Roman law, "as a preset system included in the property right system".[8][page needed] The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be privately owned"[8][page needed] as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis.[9] The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated.[10] The term res communes was defined as "things that could be commonly enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight and ocean."[8][page needed] The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, and the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome.[8][page needed] When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, and res universitatis in early Roman law.[8][page needed]
When the first early copyright law was originally established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law.[11]
The phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th-century France to describe the end of
Definition

Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more generally, regard the public domain as a negative space; that is, it consists of works that are no longer in copyright term or were never protected by copyright law.
Public domain by medium
Books
A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book that was created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired[17] or have been forfeited.[clarification needed][18]
In most countries the
A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published before 1930 is in the public domain; US copyrights last for 95 years for books originally published between 1930 and 1978 if the copyright was properly registered and maintained.[20]
For example: the works of Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Machado de Assis, Olavo Bilac and Edgar Allan Poe are in the public domain worldwide as they all died over 100 years ago.[21]
Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive and Wikisource make tens of thousands of public domain books available online as ebooks.[22][23][24]
Music
People have been creating music for millennia. The first musical notation system, the Music of Mesopotamia system, was created 4,000 years ago. Guido of Arezzo introduced Latin musical notation in the 10th century.[25] This laid the foundation for the preservation of global music in the public domain, a distinction formalized alongside copyright systems in the 17th century. Musicians copyrighted their publications of musical notation as literary writings, but performing copyrighted pieces and creating derivative works were not restricted by early copyright laws. Copying was widespread, in compliance with the law, but expansions of those laws intended to benefit literary works and responding to commercial music recording technology's reproducibility have led to stricter rules. Relatively recently, a normative view that copying in music is not desirable and lazy has become popular among professional musicians.[original research?]
US copyright laws distinguish between musical compositions and sound recordings, the former of which refers to melody, notation or lyrics created by a composer or lyricist, including sheet music, and the latter referring to a recording performed by an artist, including a CD, LP, or digital sound file.[26] Musical compositions fall under the same general rules as other works, and anything published before 1925 is considered public domain. Sound recordings, on the other hand, are subject to different rules and are not eligible for public domain status until 2021–2067, depending on the date and location of publishing, unless explicitly released beforehand.[20]
The Musopen project records music in the public domain for the purposes of making the music available to the general public in a high-quality audio format. Online musical archives preserve collections of classical music recorded by Musopen and offer them for download/distribution as a public service.
Films
A public-domain film is a film that was never under copyright, was released to public domain by its author, or whose copyright has expired. All films released in the United States before 1 January 1930 have been entered in the public domain in that country.
Value
Pamela Samuelson has identified eight "values" that can arise from information and works in the public domain.[27]
Possible values include:
- Building blocks for the creation of new knowledge, examples include data, facts, ideas, theories, and scientific principle.
- Access to cultural heritage through information resources such as ancient Greek texts and Mozart's symphonies.
- Promoting education, through the spread of information, ideas, and scientific principles.
- Enabling follow-on innovation, through for example expired patents and copyright.
- Enabling low cost access to information without the need to locate the owner or negotiate rights clearance and pay royalties, through for example expired copyrighted works or patents, and non-original data compilation.[28]
- Promoting public health and safety, through information and scientific principles.
- Promoting the democratic process and values, through news, laws, regulation, and judicial opinion.
- Enabling competitive imitation, through for example expired patents and copyright, or publicly disclosed technologies that do not qualify for patent protection.[27]: 22
Relationship with derivative works
Derivative works include
Once works enter into the public domain, derivative works such as adaptations in book and film may increase noticeably, as happened with Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel The Secret Garden, which became public domain in the US in 1977 and most of the rest of the world in 1995.[35] By 1999, the plays of Shakespeare, all public domain, had been used in more than 420 feature-length films.[36][37] In addition to straightforward adaptation, they have been used as the launching point for transformative retellings such as Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Troma Entertainment's Tromeo and Juliet.[38][39][40] Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. is a derivative of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, one of thousands of derivative works based on the public domain painting.[31] The 2018 film A Star is Born is a remake of the 1937 film of the same name, which is in the public domain due to an unrenewed copyright.[41]
Rights in public domain reproduction
Courts in different jurisdictions have come to different conclusions as to whether the reproduction of a public domain work gains its own rights protection, or whether it too is in the public domain. In a German 2016 case, the
Perpetual copyright
In some countries, certain works may never fully lapse into the public domain. In the
While the copyright has expired for the Peter Pan works by
In a
Public domain mark

In 2010, Creative Commons proposed the Public Domain Mark (PDM) as symbol to indicate that a work is free of known copyright restrictions and therefore in the public domain.[47][48] The public domain mark is a combination of the copyright symbol, which acts as copyright notice, with the international 'no' symbol. The Europeana databases use it, and for instance on the Wikimedia Commons in February 2016 2.9 million works (~10% of all works) are listed with the mark.[49]
Application to copyrightable works
Works not covered by copyright law
The underlying idea that is expressed or manifested in the creation of a work generally cannot be the subject of copyright law (see
Works created before the existence of copyright and patent laws also form part of the public domain. For example,
Expiration of copyright
Determination of whether a copyright has expired depends on an examination of the copyright in its source country.
In most countries that are signatories to the
In the United States, determining whether a work has entered the public domain or is still under copyright depends upon what the law or regulation was at creation, and whether new regulations have grandfathered in certain older works. Because
Legal traditions differ on whether a work in the public domain can have its copyright restored. In the European Union, the Copyright Duration Directive was applied retroactively, restoring and extending the terms of copyright on material previously in the public domain. Term extensions by the US and Australia generally have not removed works from the public domain, but rather delayed the addition of works to it. However, the United States moved away from that tradition with the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which removed from the public domain many foreign-sourced works that had previously not been in copyright in the US for failure to comply with US-based formalities requirements. Consequently, in the US, foreign-sourced works and US-sourced works are now treated differently, with foreign-sourced works remaining under copyright regardless of compliance with formalities, while domestically sourced works may be in the public domain if they failed to comply with then-existing formalities requirements—a situation described as odd by some scholars, and unfair by some US-based rightsholders.[52]
Government works
Works of various governments around the world may be excluded from copyright law and may therefore be considered to be in the public domain in their respective countries.[53] They may also be in the public domain in other countries as well. Material in the public domain is still considered so when included as part of larger copyrighted creations.[54]
In the United States, work created by the federal government is not subject to copyright law, placing it within the public domain. However, the government may own and use copyrighted materials that were not initially created by them.[55] Alternatively, materials created by the United Kingdom's government are not automatically in public domain but instead placed under the Open Government Licence.[56] The status of government creations vary depending on the country they are in.
Dedicating works to the public domain
Release without copyright notice
Before 1 March 1989, in the US, works could be easily given into the public domain by just releasing it without an explicit
Public-domain-like licenses
An alternative is for copyright holders to issue a license which irrevocably grants as many rights as possible to the general public. Real public domain makes
The
In October 2014, the
Patents
In most countries, the term of rights for patents is 20 years, after which the invention becomes part of the public domain. In the United States, the contents of patents are considered valid and enforceable for 20 years from the date of filing within the United States or 20 years from the earliest date of filing if under 35 USC 120, 121, or 365(c).[72] However, the text and any illustration within a patent, provided the illustrations are essentially line drawings and do not in any substantive way reflect the "personality" of the person drawing them, are not subject to copyright protection.[73] This is separate from the patent rights just mentioned.
Trademarks
A trademark registration may remain in force indefinitely, or expire without specific regard to its age. For a trademark registration to remain valid, the owner must continue to use it. In some circumstances, such as disuse, failure to assert trademark rights, or common usage by the public without regard for its intended use, it could become
Because trademarks are registered with governments, some countries or trademark registries may recognize a mark, while others may have determined that it is generic and not allowable as a trademark in that registry. For example, the drug acetylsalicylic acid (2-acetoxybenzoic acid) is better known as aspirin in the United States—a generic term. In Canada, however, Aspirin, with an uppercase A, is still a trademark of the German company Bayer, while aspirin, with a lowercase "a", is not. Bayer lost the trademark in the United States, the UK and France after World War I, as part of the Treaty of Versailles. So many copycat products entered the marketplace during the war that it was deemed generic just three years later.[citation needed]
Informal uses of trademarks are not covered by trademark protection. For example,
Public Domain Day

Public Domain Day is an observance of when

The observance of a "Public Domain Day" was initially informal; the earliest known mention was in 2004 by Wallace McLean (a Canadian public domain activist),[77] with support for the idea echoed by Lawrence Lessig.[78] As of 1 January 2010,[update][79] there is as Public Domain Day website lists the authors whose works are entering the public domain. There are activities in countries around the world by various organizations all under the banner Public Domain Day, this can help people around the world celebrate works written a while ago.
See also
- Public Domain Mark
- Public records
- Center for the Study of the Public Domain
- Copyfraud
- Copyleft
- Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States
- Copyright Term Extension Act
- Eldred v. Ashcroft
- Fair dealing
- Free-culture movement
- Free software
- Freedom of panorama
- Limitations and exceptions to copyright
- List of copyright terms of countries
- List of films in the public domain in the United States
- Millar v Taylor
- Orphan works
- Paying public domain
- Protection of Classics
- Public Domain Enhancement Act
- Public domain image resources
- Public domain in the United States
- Public domain software
- Rule of the shorter term
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- Huang, Hui (2009). "On public domain in copyright law". Frontiers of Law in China. 4 (2): 178–195. .
- Ronan, Deazley (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 102. .
- Torremans, Paul, ed. (2007). Copyright Law: A Handbook of Contemporary Research. Research handbooks in intellectual property. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84844-021-0 – via Google Books.
External links
- Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke University
- Communia, internet association on the digital public domain