The term “public domain” encompasses those materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. No individual owns these works; rather, they are owned by the public. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission and without citing the original author, but no one can ever own it.
When using works from the Public Domain, you do not need to credit the author nor do you need to get permission, according to a 2003 ruling from the US Supreme Court.
However, it is wise to cite your sources, so crediting the original author or the source is a best practice. Be careful of copying directly from a Public Domain work, as this could qualify as plagiarism.
https://pitt.libguides.com/copyright/publicdomain
Information adapted from "Welcome to the Public Domain": Stanford University Libraries
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The Internet Archive offers over 20,000,000 freely downloadable books and texts. |
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Completely free books from a variety of different authors. The listed books are from Project Gutenberg, which have been converted to HTML. |
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Documents published prior to 1925. |
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Govinfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch, and provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. |
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HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. |
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The Internet Archive offers over 20,000,000 freely downloadable books and texts. There is also a collection of 2.3 million modern eBooks that may be borrowed by anyone with a free archive.org account. |
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Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for you to enjoy. |
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This guide is intended to assist people who are interested in exploring interesting works which have entered the public domain. |
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"the Web's first edition of the Complete works of William Shakespeare. This site has offered Shakespeare's plays and poetry to the Internet Community since 1993." |
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Wikipedia Guide to Public Domain Resources This page is intended as a helpful guide to public-domain resources, but as with all publicly-editable guides, make sure to verify that materials are in the public domain before you use them. |
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Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitized items - books, music, artworks, and more. Select Public Domain marked under "CAN I USE IT?" |
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The Flickr Commons allow cultural institution to share photographs in their collections. |
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Free Public Domain Images |
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Library of Congress Digital Collections Items from the Library of Congress' digital collection that are free to use and reuse. |
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Free Public Domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world. |
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Contains high resolution digital stock photographs free for commercial use. |
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New York Times Public Domain Images Public Domain images from the New York Times on Wikimedia. |
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Free Public Domain photography collection. Licensed under Creative Commmons CC0.1.0 Public Domian Dedication. Attribution is not required, but highly appreciated. |
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View thousands of short films about education, advertising, and industry. |
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Smithsonian Institution Public Domain Images Images from the Smithsonian Institute that are in the public domain. |
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Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. |
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Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. Copyright is automatic - there is no need to register. But, works can be copyrighted through the Copyright & Trademark Online Registration - US Copyright Office - which is part of the Library of Congress. Even if a work is not labeled with a copyright notice, assume it is since there is no longer a legal requirement to label copyrighted works. |
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Is it Protected by Copyright? For works published in the U.S.A. |
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| Date of First Publication | Permission Needed? | Copyright Status/Term |
| Before 1925 |
No (Subtracting 96 years from the current year will be the year of publication of more works entering the public domain) |
In Public Domain |
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After 1924 & Before 1978 If published without © notice |
No (Subtracting 96 years from the current year will be the year of publication of more works entering the public domain) |
In Public Domain |
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After 1924 & Before 1964 If published with © notice, but not renewed after 28 years |
No To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
In Public Domain |
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After 1924 & Before 1964 If published with © notice, renewed after 28 years |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected through 2018 or longer (95 years from the date of publication)Hours 1130 - 1530 |
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After 1963 & Before 1978 If published with © notice |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected through 2059 or longer (95 years from the date of publication) |
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After 1977 & Before 2003 Created (unpublished) before 1978 & first published before January 1, 2003 |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected through 2047 or longer (until 70 years after the death of the author) |
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After 1977 & Before March 1, 1989 If published without © notice & without subsequent registration |
No To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
In Public Domain |
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After 1977 & Before March 1, 1989 If published without © notice but registered within 5 years: or published with © notice |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected until 70 years after the death of the author |
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On or after March 1, 1989 Published with or without © notice |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected until 70 years after the death of the author |
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Published after 2002 Created before 1978 and author died more than 70 years ago |
No | In Public Domain |
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Unpublished Works (date of creation) Created by Individual or Joint Authors |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected until 70 years after the death of the author |
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Unpublished Works (date of creation) Created under Corporate Authorship |
Maybe To determine the exact date a work will enter (or has entered) the public domain, see the Copyright Genie. |
Protected until 120 years after the date of creation |
Adapted from https://librarycopyright.net/resources/digitalslider/index.html# under Creative Commons License  |
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