For many individuals, a new year represents a fresh start. January 1st also signifies a new beginning for numerous creative and scholarly works around the world. Public Domain Day commemorates the occasion as copyright expires for a new batch of works and ushers them into the public domain. The Tale of Little Pig Robinson by beloved children’s author Beatrix Potter is just one of the items entering the public domain in 2014 for many countries.
Release some of your own works from copyright in honor of Public Domain Day
If you have ever taken a photo, written a story, or recorded a video you hold the copyright to that work.
To dedicate a work to the public domain, you may apply the Creative Commons CC0 license to waive all copyrights.
Images may also be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under a public domain license.
If you hold the copyright to a work archived by HathiTrust, you may grant permission to make the full text publicly available and/or dedicate the work to the public domain.
This is indeed cause for celebration. Once a work enters the public domain, anyone may freely copy, distribute, adapt, remix, translate or otherwise use the material without permission or other limitations. The annual influx of public domain material results in a trove of restriction-free source material for artists, writers, musicians, and other creators. Jane Austen’s novels, for example, are all in the public domain and have been adapted numerous times for film and television.
‘Public domain’ may be a familiar term, but misconceptions abound regarding its true meaning. For instance, works that are widely available to the public, such as images, videos, and text on the Web, are not necessarily also in the public domain.
In the United States, copyright protection extends instantly and automatically to new works created since March 1, 1989. In order to qualify for copyright, a work must require at least a minimum amount of creativity to produce and it needs to exist in some tangible format (for example: written down, coded into HTML, saved to a hard drive, or sculpted in clay). Therefore, most material on the Web is actually protected by copyright whether or not a copyright notice is present.
The public domain actually consists of items that either were never covered by copyright law or their copyright protection has expired. For example, most works created by employees of the U.S. federal government in the scope of their employment enter the public domain immediately. Those items initially protected by copyright enter the public domain once the copyright term expires.
Copyright duration varies from country to country, so works will not enter the public domain at the same time for everyone. For example, Canada has a copyright term of the author’s lifetime plus 50 years, while many European countries have a copyright term of the author’s lifetime plus 70 years.
In the United States, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1988 increased copyright duration to the author’s lifetime plus 70 years, after which the work enters the public domain. This legislation also extended copyright terms for many earlier works, with the result that no published works will enter the public domain in the United States until 2019.
Creators may also voluntarily remove copyright at any time by dedicating a work to the public domain. Determining the copyright term for works published under earlier versions of U.S. law can be complicated, but Peter Hirtle’s chart “Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States” can help resolve many questions.
Find works in the public domain
Many sites collect public domain material. Here are a few places you can find items in the public domain (note: some also contain copyrighted materials).
For a more comprehensive list, please see Columbia University’s list of public domain resources.
Although copyright law in the United States has changed over time, the public domain remains indispensable to accomplishing the stated purpose of copyright: to promote the progress of science and the arts. Copyright law grants creators exclusive rights for a limited time to control how their work is used and distributed. While this protection encourages creativity and innovation by providing an opportunity for authors to profit from their work, the fact that copyright eventually expires is equally important to creative culture.
Creators from all disciplines take inspiration from existing works and a continuously replenished public domain provides a rich, unfettered source of materials to draw upon. Residents of the United States can look forward to 2019 when the annual cycle of works entering the public domain will resume. Until then, we may only celebrate vicariously the many treasures joining the public domain on January 1st for the rest of the world.
Along with the Beatrix Potter story mentioned earlier, the public domain in various countries welcomes creations from other authors, artists, musicians, and notable figures such as George Washington Carver, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Fats Waller, and Nikola Tesla in 2014.
Visit these sites around the Web for more coverage of Public Domain Day 2014 and works entering the public domain:
- PublicDomainDay.org from COMMUNIA
- Public Domain Day: January 1, 2014 — The Road NOT Taken from the Duke Law Center for the Study of the Public Domain
- The Public Domain Review: Class of 2014 by the Open Knowledge Foundation
- Public Domain Day: January 1st by Alex Wild, in Scientific American
- 2014 in Public Domain from Wikipedia
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By Jessica Meindertsma, Rights Management Specialist at the Copyright Resources Center, The Ohio State University Libraries
January 15, 2014 at 10:43 am
Thanks for this informative review of Public Domain Day and public domain generally.
January 16, 2014 at 9:03 am
Glad it was helpful! You can find more information on the public domain and other copyright topics on our website: http://go.osu.edu/copyright
January 18, 2014 at 5:26 pm
But nowadays it is so inexpensive to purchase a legal copy of something, you have eBay, Amazon, book stores, indie sellers…the ways you can get your hands on things these days is mind boggling. Why do we have to have them for free? I paid for all my books in school.
January 22, 2014 at 12:57 pm
Thank you for your comment. We celebrate Public Domain Day because it marks the occasion each year when the actual content of various works becomes available for others to reuse and re-purpose without restriction.
As you mentioned, someone can purchase a legal copy of copyrighted materials secondhand, but they wouldn’t be able to translate, adapt, or remix it without obtaining permission or relying on fair use. Often creativity is inspired by the works of others, so the Public Domain provides a valuable collection of content that artists, writers, etc can draw on without restriction.
Once in the Public Domain, copies of a work may be produced and sold or given away by anyone. Research indicates that there are actually more new editions of Public Domain materials available for sale on Amazon than of copyrighted works. This article goes into further detail.