Scholarly Communications

The public domain is the collection of all expressive works for which no one owns the copyright - or to look at it another way, the collection of works which everyone owns! It is a wellspring of knowledge, culture, and creative growth.

People sometimes confuse the idea of public accessibility with the specific legal concept of the public domain, but whether a work is available online or not has no relevance at all to its public domain status. Most works that are publicly available online are NOT in the public domain - they usually have an owner somewhere. A work, whether it is online or not, is only in the public domain if its term of copyright protection is over, or if it never met the requirements for copyright protection in the first place.

Here's a couple reasons why a work has entered the public domain:

• Copyright is over: In the United States, the only sure-bet works where copyright has ended are those that were published in the U.S. before 1923. Many works that were published in other countries prior to 1923 are still covered by copyright in the U.S. And it's worth noting that it is entirely possible for a work to be in the public domain in one country, and still covered by copyright in another!

Nevertheless, copyright has also ended for many works that were published more recently - even as late as the 1960s and 1970s - see the resources below for more information on all the details!

• Copyright never existed: All works created by the United States Federal Government (and federal employees in the course of their work) are in the public domain in the United States from the moment of their creation. No copyright exists for United States Federal Government works. (This has not been interpreted to apply to State Governments in the same way, however, that might be changing).

Works in the public domain may be used freely by anyone, for any purpose, without copyright permission from anyone - because no one owns exclusive rights in these works. However, use of public domain works can still raise issues around defamation, rights of publicity, trademark, and related rights of individuals or entities portrayed in the materials.