Works in the public domain are those whose intellectual property rights have expired, been forfeited, 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. 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.
In informal usage, the public domain consists of works that are publicly available; while according to the formal definition it consists of works that are unavailable for private ownership or are available for public use. 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, if required, implies public domain status in that country.
Public Domain is one of the Traditional Safety Valves.
Read more about Public Domain: History, Definition, Value, Relationship With Derivative Works, Relationship With The Information Society, Perpetual Copyright, Patents, Trademarks
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or domain:
“Wags try to invent new stories to tell about the legislature, and end by telling the old one about the senator who explained his unaccustomed possession of a large roll of bills by saying that someone pushed it over the transom while he slept. The expression “It came over the transom,” to explain any unusual good fortune, is part of local folklore.”
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)