Why would someone allow their work in the public domain?
- how is public domain used
- why is public domain important
- how does public domain work
- how is public domain determined
How do you know if something is in the public domain
Public domain facts.
Public domain
Works outside the scope of copyright law
For other uses, see Public domain (disambiguation).
For the content guidelines regarding the use of public domain content on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Public domain.
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusiveintellectual property rights apply.
Those rights may have expired,[1] been forfeited,[2] expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.[3] Because no one holds the exclusive rights, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission.[3][4]
As examples, the works of William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, Miguel de Cervantes, Zoroaster, Lao Zi, Confucius, Aristotle, L.
Frank Baum, Leonardo da Vinci and Georges Méliès are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired.[1] Some works are not covered by a country's copyright laws, and are therefore in the public domain; for example, in the United States, items excluded f