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Copyright Resources: Creative Commons and Public Domain

Creative Commons

creative commons logoCreative Commons aim to allow people to freely access and reuse creative works, including images and videos. It's a project that produces a set of copyright licenses which let you know how you can use a work within guidelines set by its creator. Creative Commons licenses are one way for owners of copyrighted material to, in essence, approve certain types of uses of their work without permission. These type of licensed materials (except those explicitly licensed with a "Public Domain" license) are still copyrighted and the creator of the work still owns that copyright.   

The purpose of this licensing is to offer a flexible and efficient way for content creators to allow their materials to be used in certain ways without the burden of the permissions process. Typically, CC licenses require a minimum attribution. Copyright holders can choose licenses that allow (or prohibit) commercial uses, declare whether adapting the work is permitted, and to require the user to also use a CC-license on derivative works.  

Marking your work
The Creative Commons site provides a lot of information about marking your work so that others will know it is available for use under Creative Commons.

Copyright Term and Public Domain

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone.

Works fall into the public domain for three main reasons:

public domain logo

1. the term of copyright for the work has expired
2. the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright 

3. the work is a work of the U.S. Government

As a general rule, most works enter the public domain because of old age. This includes any work published in the United States before 1923. Another large block of works are in the public domain because they were published before 1964 and copyright was not renewed. (Renewal was a requirement for works published before 1978.) A smaller group of works fell into the public domain because they were published without copyright notice (copyright notice was necessary for works published in the United States before March 1, 1989).

This page has been adapted from Copyright Resources at Portland Community College

Creative Commons Search

Search for Creative Commons licensed content from around the web.

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https://search.creativecommons.org/

Works Created by the Federal Government

Works created by the Federal government are not subject to copyright. This applies to works created by employees of the United States government in the course of their service.

There are a few exceptions:

  • Works produced by contractors or freelancers employed by the government are likely to be copyrighted.
  • Works produced by some agencies (eg. the post office) may be subject to copyright.
  • Government websites regularly feature art and imagery that were purchased or licensed by the government.  Do not assume that because it is on a government website it is not subject to copyright.
  • The government can own copyrights that are transferred to it.
  • Logos of government agencies might be subject to trademark law even though they are not copyrightable.