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Original material, such as art, literature, photographs, or music, that is available for use by anyone, without cost, because the material has not been copyrighted or because the copyright has expired.

The public domain differs from national domain and acquired land. National domain arises from political jurisdiction while the federal government either buys acquired land or receives it as gifts for national parks, monuments, forests, wildlife refuges, post-office sites, and other such purposes. Cessions of their western land claims by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, seven of the original thirteen states, created the first portion of the public domain or public land. These seven states retained the ungranted land within their present boundaries as did the other original states and Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. Between 1802 and 1867, huge additions to the national domain and the public domain occurred through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Florida Purchase in 1819, the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the Texas cession of 1850, the division of the Oregon country in 1846, the huge purchase from Mexico in 1848, the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the purchase of Alaska in 1867, and the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 (see Table 1).

From the outset, there were two views concerning the policy that should govern the disposal of the public lands. The first, sponsored by Alexander Hamilton, was that the government's need of money to retire its Revolutionary War debt and to meet its expenses required it to pledge the public domain for the payment of that debt and to extract from it the greatest possible income. The other view, held by Thomas Jefferson, was that farmerowners with a stake in the land made the most responsible citizens and that they should have easy access to the public lands at little cost. Hamilton's view prevailed for a time, and Jefferson, who yielded to necessity, reluctantly accepted it. The basic established price varied from $1.00 to $2.00 per acre until 1820, when credit was abolished and the minimum price became $1.25 per acre. This may not have been a high price to the investors Hamilton hoped would purchase large tracts of land, but to frontier settlers lacking capital or credit, it was more than they could raise. Their solution was to squat on public land, improve it, and try to raise a crop or two to make their payments before the government discovered their trespass. Squatters wanted protection against speculators who might try to buy their somewhat improved tracts. Squatters protected themselves through claim associations, which provided mutual assistance to all members. Nonetheless, the squatters also wanted the legal recognition of their right of preemption; that is, a prior right to purchase their claim before auction at the minimum price, without having to bid against speculators. They won a number of special preemption acts and in 1841 sustained a major victory with the adoption of the Distribution-Preemption Act, which permitted persons to settle anywhere on surveyed land in advance of its official opening; to improve the land; and, when the auction was announced, to purchase up to 160 acres at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre. Squatterism had thus prevailed, and a major breach in the revenue policy occurred.

Table 1 In 1854 the Graduation Act provided a further breach by reducing the price of land that had been on the market for ten or more years in proportion to the length of time it had been subject to sale. In 1862 the West gained its major triumph in the Homestead Act, which made public lands free to settlers who would live on and improve tracts of up to 160 acres for five years. Unfortunately, a substantial portion of the best arable lands had already been alienated through sale to speculators, grants to states, and direct grants to corporations to aid in the construction of canals and railroads. These new owners sold all this land for the market price, which was beyond the reach of many pioneer settlers.

Table 1

Individual speculators and land companies invested heavily in land during boom periods, 1816–1819, 1833–1837, and 1853–1857. By anticipating settlers, investors, as well as land grant railroads and states, raised the cost of farmmaking; dispersed population widely on the frontier; delayed the introduction of roads, churches, and transportation facilities; contributed to the early appearance of tenancy; aggravated relations with the Indians; and in some regions, were responsible for the development of rural slums. On the other hand, they provided credit to hard-pressed pioneers, aided in bringing settlers to the West through their advertising and promotional works, and introduced improved farming techniques that by example contributed to better agricultural practices. At the time, public attention centered on the damaging effects of intrusions by speculators and led to demands for the limitation in the sale of public land and the halt to further grants to railroads. After the adoption of the Homestead Act, little newly surveyed land became available for unlimited purchase although unsold land that had been offered previously continued to be subject to unrestricted entry.

Farmers in the High Plains west of the ninety-ninth meridian, where the annual rainfall was less than 20 inches and where a portion of the land had to be left fallow each year, needed more than 160 or even 320 acres for the extensive cultivation that was necessary. Congress met this difficulty by increasing the quantity that farmmakers could acquire by enacting the Timber Culture Act of 1873, the Desert Land Act of 1877, and the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. Combined with the Preemption and Homestead acts, these measures permitted individuals to acquire up to 1,120 acres in the semiarid High Plains and in the intermountain and desert regions. Like all poorly drafted land legislation, the acts became subject to gross abuse by grasping persons anxious to engross as much land as possible through the use of dummy entry people and roving, uprooted people willing to serve their ends.

Growing criticism of the abuse of the settlement laws and the laxity of the land administration led in 1889–1891 to the adoption of a series of measures to restrict total acquisition of public lands under all laws to 320 acres, to halt all purchases of potential agricultural lands other than those specifically intended for farmmaking, and to eliminate or insert additional safeguards in acts most subject to abuse.

Notwithstanding the extensive abuse of the land system and its incongruous features that somewhat minimized the effectiveness of the measures designed to aid homesteaders in becoming farm owners, the public land states enjoyed a remarkable growth rate. In the 1850s, the first decade for which there are statistics, 401,000 new farms sprang up in the public land states. Thereafter, the number grew even more rapidly. By 1890 settlers had established an additional 2 million farms in the public land states. Never before had so many farmers subjected such a large area to cultivation.

The censuses of 1880 and 1890, giving alarming figures of mortgage debt outstanding on farms and the high proportion of farms that were tenant-operated, combined with the growing feeling that soils, minerals, and forests were being wastefully used, turned people's thoughts to further reform in land management and to conservation. Instead of a policy of transferring all public lands to individuals, railroads, and states as rapidly as possible, Congress determined to retain a portion of the land in public ownership. To this end, an amendment to the General Revision Act of 1891 authorized the president to withdraw from public entry forest lands on which organized management policies could be introduced. Under President Theodore Roosevelt's leadership, gross withdrawals reached nearly 160 million acres.

Next in the planned use of the natural resources by government was the Reclamation Act (Newlands Act) of 1902, which provided that the income from the sale of public lands be used for construction of high dams on western rivers to store water for the irrigation of dry lands and thus to provide for a new farmers' frontier. With supplementary appropriations for construction of dams, the government gave an enormous boon to the development of the eleven far western states, but the provisions of the act that aimed to make small farmers the major beneficiaries have proved ineffective. Instead, large individual and corporate owners have derived the greatest returns.

In 1916 the National Park Service came into existence to administer areas of superlative natural beauty that the federal government was setting aside from the public lands as permanent reserves: Yosemite, Yellowstone, Hot Springs, Glacier, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Grand Canyon, and Crater Lake. Thus, curiousity seekers and commercials interests could not despoil these and other places of outstanding aesthetic, geologic, and historical interest.

Rapid and unscientific exploitation of mineral lands by destructive and wasteful practices induced Roosevelt to order the withdrawal of 66 million acres suspected of containing valuable coal deposits and a smaller acreage of suspected oil-bearing land. Lands having coal, potash, phosphate, and nitrate deposits also gained protection, although the surface rights might remain alienable. In 1920 the Mineral Leasing Act provided some control over the exploitation of these withdrawn lands for the first time. Moreover, as a sweetener to the West, it allocated 37.5 percent of the proceeds from leasing to the states in which the lands were located and 57.5 percent to reclamation projects, thereby ensuring a principal and growing source of funds for such projects. The remaining 5 percent went to the states in which lands were allocated for schools.

Roosevelt's conservation-minded advisers, notably Gifford Pinchot, also persuaded him to withdraw 3.45 million acres of public lands as possible sources for power sites. The Water Power Act of 1920 authorized a system of licensing the power sites, but it was not until the 1930s and 1940s that the federal government undertook great hydroelectric power development.

The last important withdrawal of public lands from entry took place in 1934. The harmful effects of overgrazing on the ranges of the West had become so evident that even the livestock industry recognized the need to accept federal control. This withdrawal provided that in the future, the remaining grazing lands in public ownership were to be leased under close supervision. To administer these lands, the federal government set up a Division of Grazing in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Congress preferred to create a new administrative agency rather than to permit the Forest Service, which had gained much valuable experience in administering the range lands within the national forests, because this latter agency had shown independence as well as excellent judgment in protecting its lands. The Division of Grazing started off well, but it also ran into bitter opposition for its failure to play politics. Congress virtually starved it by inadequate appropriations and later consolidated it with the General Land Office in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Before 1976 the BLM struggled to administer the land under its control following hundreds of separate and sometimes contradictory laws. In that year, however, Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which presented the BLM with its first coherent, unified mission. This piece of legislation overturned the Homestead Act and instructed the BLM to administer the public domain in accordance to the concept of multiple use management. This legislative mandate empowered the BLM to balance as it deemed best the commercial use of public lands, such as through mining and grazing, with environmental protection of the public domain and maintenance of the lands for recreational use.

Over a century and a half of unparalleled prodigality in managing the public domain had made possible the alienation of most of the best agricultural, forest, and mineral lands of the United States, but there still remains a noble fragment in federal ownership under organized management. By 2002, the Bureau of Land Management was administering just over 260 million acres of land, which equals about 13 percent of the total area of the United States. Most of these public lands are in the western states, including Alaska, which presents the BLM with one of its most pressing contemporary problems. This region of the United States has witnessed remarkable population growth in the last few decades. For instance, Nevada, where the federal government administers the highest percentage of land, 67 percent, of any state, also experienced the largest population explosion of any state, an increase of over 66 percent between 1990 and 2000. In response to such pressures, during both of his terms in office, President Bill Clinton took advantage of the powers granted to presidents by the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create numerous new national monuments out of land formerly part of the public domain. No consumptive activities, such as mining or logging, may take place in national monuments. Clinton's administration defended this tactic as a necessary, emergency step to protect threatened natural treasures while critics interpreted it as a way for the Democratic president to bypass potential opposition from a Republican-led Congress and unilaterally make decisions in which the public should have had a voice. Either way, the BLM clearly must develop less controversial yet still effective methods of protecting the public domain in western states while also making it available as a commercial and recreational resource for a burgeoning population.

Bibliography

Durant, Robert F. The Administrative Presidency Revisited: Public Lands, the BLM, and the Reagan Revolution. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Feller, Daniel. The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.

Goodman, Doug, and Daniel McCool, eds. Contested Landscape: The Politics of Wilderness in Utah and the West. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999.

Lehmann, Scott. Privatizing Public Lands. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Oberly, James Warren. Sixty Million Acres: American Veterans and the Public Lands before the Civil War. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1990.

Robbins, William G., and James C. Foster, eds. Land in the American West: Private Claims and the Common Good. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.

Land that is owned by the United States. In copyright law, literary or creative works over which the creator no longer has an exclusive right to restrict, or receive a royalty for, their reproduction or use but which can be freely copied by the public.

See: public lands.

• Customs, Formalities, and Practices - public domain: unprotected status of intellectual property whose copyright has expired or that never had copyright
• Publishing - public domain: material that is not copyrighted and can be published without permission or payment

This article is about public ownership of creative works. For use in relationship to public lands, see Public domain (land).

For how the public domain applies to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Public domain. If you came here for help with tagging Wikimedia Commons files as public domain, see Commons:Help:Public domain.

Intellectual property law
Primary rights
Copyright · authors' rights · related rights · moral rights · patent · utility model · trademark · geographical indication · trade secret
Sui generis rights
Database right · indigenous intellectual property · industrial design right · mask work · plant breeders' rights · supplementary protection certificate
Related topics
Societal views · orphan works · public domain · outline of intellectual property
v t e

The public domain refers to works whose intellectual property rights have expired,^[1] been forfeited,^[2] or are inapplicable. Examples include the works of Shakespeare and Beethoven, most of the early silent films, the formulae of Newtonian physics, and the patents on powered flight.^[1] The term is not normally applied to situations when the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or with permission.

Informally, public domain refers to works that are publicly available; the formal definition states that it refers to works which are intangible to private ownership or are available for public use.^[2] As rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and not in another. Some rights depend on registrations with a country-by-country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country implies public domain status there.

Contents 1 History 2 Definition 3 Value 4 Relationship with derivative works 5 Relationship with the information society 6 Perpetual copyright 7 Application to copyrightable works 7.1 Works not covered by copyright law 7.2 Expiration of copyright 7.3 Government works 8 Patents 9 Trademarks 9.1 Generic trademarks 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

History

Public domain did not come to fruition as a term until the mid-17th century, although as a concept "it can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system."^[3] The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be privately owned"^[3] as res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res commune was defined as "things that could be commonly enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight and ocean."^[3] 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.^[3] When looking at public domain from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res commune, res publicae, and res universitatis in early Roman Law.^[3]

When the first early copyright law was first 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 eighteenth 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.^[4] The phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of the public domain"^[5] and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that which is left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright, patents, and trademarks, expire or are abandoned.^[6] In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain."^[7] Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".^[8]

Definition

Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition

Buddhist monk Geshe Konchog Wangdu reads Mahayana sutras from an old woodblock copy of the Tibetan Kanjur.

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.^[9] 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.^[1] 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".^[9] Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "There 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 to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival."^[10] The term public domain may also be interchangeably used with other imprecise and/or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", and the "information commons".^[6]

Value

This section contains information which may be of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject matter. Please help improve this article by clarifying or removing superfluous information. (May 2011)

In attempting to map the public domain Pamela Samuelson has identified eight "values" that can arise from information and works in the public domain,^[11] though not every idea or work that is in the public domain necessarily has a value.^[12] 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.^[13]

• 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.^[11]

Relationship with derivative works

L.H.O.O.Q. (1919). Derivative work by the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp based on the Mona Lisa.

Derivative works include translations, musical arrangements, and dramatizations of a work, as well as other forms of transformation or adaptation.^[14] Copyrighted works may not be used for derivative works without permission from the copyright owner,^[15] while public domain works can be freely used for derivative works without permission.^[16][17] Artworks that are public domain may also be reproduced photographically or artistically or used as the basis of new, interpretive works.^[18] 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 1987.^[19] As of 1999, the plays of Shakespeare, all public domain, had been used in more than 420 feature-length films.^[20] 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.^[21][22][23] 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.^[16]

Relationship with the information society

According to Bernt Hugenholtz and Lucie Guibault, the public domain is under pressure from the "commodification of information" as items of information that previously had little or no economic value have acquired independent economic value in the information age, such as factual data, personal data, genetic information, and pure ideas. The commodification of information is taking place through intellectual property law, contract law, as well as broadcasting and telecommunications law.^[24]

Perpetual copyright

Main article: Perpetual copyright

Some works may never fully lapse into the public domain. A perpetual crown copyright is held for the Authorized King James Version of the Bible in the UK.^[25] While the copyright of the play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie has expired in the United Kingdom, it was granted a special exception under the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (Schedule 6)^[26] that requires royalties to be paid for performances within the UK, so long as Great Ormond Street Hospital (to whom Barrie gave the rights) continues to exist.

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 idea-expression divide). Mathematical formulae will therefore generally form part of the public domain, to the extent that their expression in the form of software is not covered by copyright.

Works created before the existence of copyright and patent laws also form part of the public domain. For example, the Bible and the inventions of Archimedes are in the public domain, but copyright may exist in translations or new formulations of these works.

Expiration of copyright

The expiration of a copyright is more complex than that of a patent. Historically the United States has specified terms of a number of years following creation or publication; this number has been increased several times. Most other countries specify terms of a number of years following the death of the last surviving creator; this number varies from one country to another (50 years and 70 years are the most common), and has also been increased in many of them. See List of countries' copyright length. Legal traditions differ on whether a work in the public domain can have its copyright restored. Term extensions by the U.S. and Australia generally have not removed works from the public domain, but rather delayed the addition of works to it. By contrast, a European Union directive harmonizing the term of copyright protection was applied retroactively, restoring and extending the terms of copyright on material previously in the public domain.

Government works

Works of the United States Government and various other governments are excluded from copyright law and may therefore be considered to be in the public domain in their respective countries.^[27] In the United States, when copyrighted material is enacted into the law, it enters the public domain. Thus, the building codes, when enacted, are in the public domain.^[28] They may also be in the public domain in other countries as well. "It is axiomatic that material in the public domain is not protected by copyright, even when incorporated into a copyrighted work."^[29]

Patents

Main article: Term of patent

In most countries the term for patents is 20 years, after which the invention becomes part of the public domain.

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 generic, and therefore part of the public domain.

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" is still a trademark of the German company Bayer. Bayer lost the trademark in the United States after World War I, when the mark was sold to an American firm. So many copy-cat products entered the marketplace during the war that it was deemed generic just three years later.^[30]

Generic trademarks

Although Hormel resigned itself to genericide,^[31] it has fought attempts by other companies to register "spam" as a trademark in relation to computer products.^[32]

See also

• Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
• Copyfraud
• Copyleft
• Copyright status of work by the U.S. government
• Copyright Term Extension Act
• CSPD, Duke University Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain
• Creative Commons
• Eldred v. Ashcroft
• Fair dealing
• Free software
• Limitations and exceptions to copyright
• List of countries' copyright length
• List of films in the public domain in the United States
• Orphan works
• Public Domain Day
• Public Domain Enhancement Act
• Public domain film
• Public domain image resources
• Public domain in the United States
• Public domain music
• Public domain software
• Rule of the shorter term

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Boyle, James (2008). The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. CSPD. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-300-13740-8. http://www.google.com/books?id=Fn1Pl9Gv_EMC&dq=public+domain&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Graber, Christoph B.; Nenova, Mira B. (2008). Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-84720-921-4. http://www.google.com/books?id=gK6OI0hrANsC&dq=%22public+domain%22+intellectual+property&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Huang, H. (2009). "On public domain in copyright law". Frontiers of Law in China 4 (2): 178–195. DOI:10.1007/s11463-009-0011-6. 
4. ^ Torremans, Paul (2007). Copyright law: a handbook of contemporary research. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 134–135. ISBN 978-1-84542-487-9. http://books.google.com/?id=wHJBemWuPT4C&dq=%22perpetual+copyright%22. 
5. ^ Torremans, Paul (2007). Copyright law: a handbook of contemporary research. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-84542-487-9. http://books.google.com/?id=wHJBemWuPT4C&dq=%22perpetual+copyright%22. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Ronan, Deazley (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-84542-282-0. http://www.google.com/books?id=dMYXq9V1JBQC&dq=statute+of+anne+copyright&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
7. ^ Torremans, Paul (2007). Copyright law: a handbook of contemporary research. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-84542-487-9. http://books.google.com/?id=wHJBemWuPT4C&dq=%22perpetual+copyright%22. 
8. ^ Ronan, Deazley (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-84542-282-0. http://www.google.com/books?id=dMYXq9V1JBQC&dq=statute+of+anne+copyright&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
9. ^ ^{a b} Ronan, Deazley (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-84542-282-0. http://www.google.com/books?id=dMYXq9V1JBQC&dq=statute+of+anne+copyright&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
10. ^ Ronan, Deazley (2006). Rethinking copyright: history, theory, language. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-84542-282-0. http://www.google.com/books?id=dMYXq9V1JBQC&dq=statute+of+anne+copyright&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
11. ^ ^{a b} Guibault, Lucy; & Bernt Hugenholtz (2006). The future of the public domain: identifying the commons in information law. Kluwer Law International. p. 22. ISBN 90-411-2435-7, 9789041124357. http://www.google.com/books?id=KJmNGglq0nwC&dq=public+domain&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
12. ^ Guibault, Lucy; & Bernt Hugenholtz (2006). The future of the public domain: identifying the commons in information law. Kluwer Law International. p. 23. ISBN 90-411-2435-7, 9789041124357. http://www.google.com/books?id=KJmNGglq0nwC&dq=public+domain&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
13. ^ Perry&Margoni (2010). "From music tracks to Google maps: who owns Computer Generated Works?". Computer Law and Security Review. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1647584. Retrieved 2011-09-07. 
14. ^ Stern, Prof Richard H. (2001). "L.H.O.O.Q. Internet related Derivative Works". Supplemental material Computer Law 484. The George Washington University Law School. http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/Lhooq0.htm. Retrieved 23 May 2010. 
15. ^ Leaffer, Marshall A. (1995). Understanding copyright law. Legal text series; Contemporary Casebook Series (2nd ed.). M. Bender. p. 46. ISBN 0-256-16448-7. 
16. ^ ^{a b} Introduction to intellectual property: theory and practice. Wold Intellectual Property Organisation, Kluwer Law International. 1997. p. 313. ISBN 978-90-411-0938-5. http://www.google.com/books?id=n7DkfPpwLbEC&dq=adaptation+public+domain+disney&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
17. ^ Fishman, Stephen (September 2008). The copyright handbook: what every writer needs to know. Nolo. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-4133-0893-8. http://books.google.com/?id=qlsvhw6O7koC&pg=PA178. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
18. ^ Fishman, Stephen (2008). Public domain: how to find and use copyright-free writings, music, art and more. Nolo. pp. 124–125. ISBN 978-1-4133-0858-7. http://books.google.com/?id=fRY4QBpLFGQC&dq=L.H.O.O.Q.+copyright+%22public+domain%22. 
19. ^ Lundin, Anne H. (2 August 2004). Constructing the canon of children's literature: beyond library walls and ivory towers. Routledge. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-8153-3841-3. http://books.google.com/?id=72flittye58C&pg=PA138. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
20. ^ Young, Mark (ed.). The Guinness Book of Records 1999, Bantam Books, 358; Voigts-Virchow, Eckartm (2004), Janespotting and Beyond: British Heritage Retrovisions Since the Mid-1990s, Gunter Narr Verlag, 92.
21. ^ Homan, Sidney (2004). Directing Shakespeare: a scholar onstage. Ohio University Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-8214-1550-4. http://books.google.com/?id=EM0n1ueBa_sC&pg=PT101. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
22. ^ Kossak, Saskia (2005). "Frame my face to all occasions": Shakespeare's Richard III on screen. Braumüller. p. 17. ISBN 978-3-7003-1492-9. http://books.google.com/?id=-PNZAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
23. ^ Cartmell, Deborah; Imelda Whelehan (2007). The Cambridge companion to literature on screen. Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-521-61486-3. http://books.google.com/?id=fhJNFc1f0DAC&pg=PA69. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
24. ^ Guibault, Lucy; & Bernt Hugenholtz (2006). The future of the public domain: identifying the commons in information law. Kluwer Law International. p. 1. ISBN 90-411-2435-7, 9789041124357. http://www.google.com/books?id=KJmNGglq0nwC&dq=public+domain&lr=&as_brr=3&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
25. ^ (Coogan & Metzger 1993, p. 618)
26. ^ "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)". Office of Public Sector Information. 1988. p. 28. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_28.htm. Retrieved September 2, 2008. 
27. ^ Copyright Office Basics
28. ^ "Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc./Opinion of the Court - Wikisource". En.wikisource.org. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Veeck_v._Southern_Building_Code_Congress_Int'l,_Inc./Opinion_of_the_Court. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 
29. ^ Nimmer, Melville B., and David Nimmer (1997). Nimmer on Copyright, section 13.03(F)(4). Albany: Matthew Bender.
30. ^ Aspirin, World of Molecules
31. ^ SPAM® Brand and the Internet
32. ^ Kieren McCarthy (January 31, 2005). "Hormel Spam trademark case canned". http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/31/spam_ruling/. Retrieved September 2, 2008. 

External links

Look up public domain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Flowchart to determine Public Domain status of a work in the U.S.
  • Stanford Copyright Renewal Database
  • Catalog of Copyright Entries Information
• OutOfCopyright.eu: Public Domain Calculation for Europe, by Europeana
• Public Domain Day: with many links to useful tools to find and determine PD works
• Public Domain Manifesto
• Europeana Public Domain charter
• Center for the study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School, Duke University
• N. Stephan Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property
• Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly

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