The
term public domain refers to creative materials that are not
protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright,
trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an
individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work
without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.
Works in the public domain are those whose exclusive
intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited,
or are inapplicable. For example, the works of Shakespeare and
Beethoven, and most of the early silent films, are all now in
the public domain by leaving the copyright term.
The term public domain refers to creative materials that are not
protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright,
trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an
individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work
without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. An
important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is
that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of
public domain works may be protected by copyright. If, for
example, someone has collected public domain images in a book or
on a website, the collection as a whole may be protected even
though individual images are not. You are free to copy and use
individual images but copying and distributing the complete
collection may infringe what is known as the collective works
copyright. Collections of public domain material will be
protected if the person who created it has used creativity in
the choices and organization of the public domain material. This
usually involves some unique selection process, for example, a
poetry scholar compiling a book The Greatest Poems of e.e.
cummings.
There are four common ways that works arrive in the public
domain:
1: The copyright has expired:
2: The copyright owner failed to follow copyright renewal rules:
3: The copyright owner deliberately places it in the public
domain, known as dedication:
4: Copyright law does not protect this type of work:
Expired Copyright:
Copyright has expired for all works published in the United
States before 1923. In other words, if the work was published in
the U.S. before January 1, 1923, you are free to use it in the
U.S. without permission. As an example, the graphic illustration
of the man with mustache (above) was published sometime in the
19th century and is in the public domain, so no permission was
required to include it within this book. These rules and dates
apply regardless of whether the work was created by an
individual author, a group of authors, or an employee (a work
made for hire).
Because of legislation passed in 1998, no new works will fall
into the public domain until 2019, when works published in 1923
will expire. In 2020, works published in 1924 will expire, and
so on. For works published after 1977, if the work was written
by a single author, the copyright will not expire until 70 years
after the authors death. If a work was written by several
authors and published after 1977, it will not expire until 70
years after the last surviving author dies.
Copyright protection always expires at the end of the calendar
year of the year it is set to expire. In other words, the last
day of copyright protection for any work is December 31. For
example, if an author of a work died on June 1, 2000, protection
of the works would continue through December 31, 2070.
There's a ton of money to be made with free public domain items,
and there all over the internet. You just have to find them. I
can type in the search bar, public domain and it brings up a ton
of websites on the topic of free public domain.
I've published 20 books of my own, that I wrote, but I'm
thinking of publishing some public domain books from the past.
All you have to do is find them, slap a new cover on them and
publish them on Amazon, and Create Space.
Books are not the only thing you can sell from public domain.
There are thousands of things out there, like photos, videos,
songs, public articles, news paper writings, and many many more,
you just have to find them. Now just because a website tells you
it's public domain, you have to be very careful not to take
their word for it. You should make sure that something your
interested in is not still copyrighted. Go to the patent website
and research everything you want to resell. You don't want to
end up in a law suit.
I hope some of the resources on my website helps you and lots of
luck to you...
