Making Use of Public Domain By J.D. BIERSDORFER

November 20, 2008
Q & A
Making Use of Public Domain By J.D. BIERSDORFER
Q. What does it mean when a Web site says a picture or document is in the public domain? Does that mean I can use it for my own purposes?

A. The public domain is a category of works made up of text, images and documents that are not protected by an active legal copyright. On the Internet, material in the public domain can be freely downloaded, copied and reused.

Just because a photo or document is available online does not mean it is automatically in the public domain, so check for copyright notices or a Creative Commons license before grabbing something to reuse. (A Creative Commons license works alongside a copyright and allows writers and artists more flexibility in sharing their creations with the world; more information is at www.creativecommons.org.)

Creative material usually ends up in the public domain in one of two ways. Some creators give up their copyright and donate their work to the public domain. For example, there are several picture sites around the Web like www.burningwell.org that offer collections of public domain photographs. Wikipedia has a list of links to copyright-free images at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources.

Works can also fall into the public domain if their copyright has expired. In general, books published before 1923 in the United States are considered in the public domain. The Tarzan tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Shakespeare’s plays, essays by Samuel Johnson and novels by Jane Austen are among the free literary offerings at Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.us) and other sites devoted to sharing public domain text. Federal publications and other government documents are not copyrighted and are also in the public domain.

The Incredible Art Department site has a page of links to public domain text and images (as well as links to several sites devoted to copyright law) at www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/clipart.html. A chart at www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain explains copyright term and the public domain as of Jan. 1, 2008.