What does it mean when a resource is "In the Public Domain"?
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 protectible 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,” or
4. copyright law does not protect this type of work.
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