Notes on Copyright & Related Issues
Back: The duration of copyright protection.
Next: Public Domain versus Publicly Available.
The meaning of "in the public domain."
The public domain contains:
- everything that is not protected by copyright (or other intellectual property law);
- in other words, everything that may be used by anyone without permission.
Ideas are not subject to copyright; only their expression is protected. Similarly, none of the following are subject to copyright:
- concepts,
- discoveries,
- methods,
- principles,
- procedures,
- processes,
- systems,
- theorems,
- work in which the copyright has expired, and
- work that the legal owner has placed in the public domain.
Once a work is in the public domain, it cannot later be copyrighted.
Important Cautions:
- The absence of a copyright notice does not guarantee that a work is in the public domain.
- The fact that work is distributed for free does not guarantee that
it is in the public domain.
- The availabiility of a work in a public place (e.g., on the WWW)
does not guarantee that it is in the public domain.
In other words, even if you find material that is freely available in
a public place and contains no copyright notice, you cannot assume it
is in the public domain.
Unless you are certain that intellectual property is in the
public domain, it is safest to assume that it is covered by copyright.
Back: The duration of copyright protection.
Next: Public Domain versus Publicly Available.
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Created: Feb 16 1996 ---
Last modified: Fri May 17 16:47:11 1996
Copyright © 1996 by
The Geometry Center.
All rights reserved.