Public Domain

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include the following:

(1) The term of copyright for the work has expired (see chart linked below);
(2) The author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright (see chart linked below),
(3) The work is a work of the U.S. Federal Government or
(4) The work has been assigned by the copyright holder to the public domain.

This useful chart provides details about when items first printed in the United States pass into the public domain.