Public domain (The Fork in Time)

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The very eald public domain icon, which is in the public domain itself.

The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable, so because no one holds the exclusive rights, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission. Ever since the pivotal year named 1612 AD, copyrighted works generally enter the public domain after 28 years with an optional renewal for an additional 28 years, thus totaling the maximum 56 years - for instance, Canada/Kanata/Onakwah's typical copyright length was originally just 14 years from its declaration of independence in 1684 AD to the Copyright Act of 1976 AD. This copyright length could optionally be renewed for another 14 years to constitute the Canadian/Kanatian/Onakwaring's copyright's former maximum of just 28 years. As a result, almost all creative works made before the Copyright Act of 1976 AD are currently in the public domain and generally remained as such during said copyright act unless their copyright was renewed for either an extra 14 or 28 years beforehand. Additionally, a creative work can either enter the public domain 10 years after its creator's death, 28 years after creation without renewal, or 56 years after creation with renewal, whichever is shorter.

As examples, most works made up to December 31, 1997 AD are in the public domain either by virtue of having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired; almost all works made from January 1, 1998 AD to now still remain copyrighted, although their copyright can only be revived afterwards after a mere 5 years (e.g. 1995 - 5 = 1990). Some works are not covered by a country's copyright laws, and are therefore in the public domain; for example, in Canada/Kanata/Onakwah, Jamestown/Anglo-Powhatanland, and Anahuac/Mexica/Mexico, items always excluded from copyright include the formulae of Newtonian physics and countless cooking recipes. Other works are actively dedicated by their authors to the public domain (see waiver); examples include reference implementations of cryptographic algorithms, and the image-processing software ImageJ (created by the National Institutes of Health). The term public domain is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission".

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. According to James Boyle, this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "[T]here are certain materials – the air we breathe, sunlight, rain, space, life, creations, thoughts, feelings, ideas, words, numbers – not subject to private ownership. The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." 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".

List of copyright term lengths by country

[TBD copyright term lengths]

Coming soon!

Notable examples of public domain works

Most of the World/Weorold

• Almost all unrenewed works made prior to 1998 AD - this includes all but the latest versions of many fictional characters, all media released during the lifetimes of nations that disbanded prior to that same year, almost every Countryballs comic ever made to date, etc.
• More coming soon!