A-to-Z Index

Contact and Help

Brian Cockburn Brian Cockburn's principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, and intellectual property.
Facebook button  Twitter button  LinkedIn button  mail button  Mendeley button
Phone: 8-6978

Creative Commons License

Copyright@JMU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

What is Public Domain?



Public Domain (often abbreviated, “PD”) is a body of intellectual material which is not under copyright and may be used without permission. This includes:

  • Works which the owner has explicitly moved into the public domain
  • Works in which copyright has expired
  • Works in which copyright has lapsed due to failure comply with necessary formalities such as renewal and notice
  • Works created by the United States Government (see 17 U.S.C. §105), as well as the works of many state and local governments.

see Public Domain Slider, and Cornell’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain table