Questions on use and classification of intellectual property as "public domain"
Questions tagged [public-domain]
188 questions
21
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4 answers
Are works created by US government employees in the performance of their duties treated as public domain outside the US?
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
--…
iEPCBM
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What is the copyright status of a journal article written more than 70 years ago?
I read (mostly on Wikipedia), that copyright to a written work expires 70 years after the author's death, or 95 years after the publication by a corporation.
Having said that, the status of journal articles (scientific or other), that includes…
Dakter
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14
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2 answers
Status of a trademarked but public domain work of fiction
There is a series of books published in the early 20th century. Copyright on at least some of them have expired; they are in the public domain, and are being widely republished.
However, the descendants of the author have trademarked the names of…
Ask About Monica
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13
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Are the Quotations in a Book of Quotations Copyrighted?
I have a book of quotations that displays a 1967 copyright. I would like to use some of them in a current work of mine that I intend to publish.
Many of the quotations in the 1967 book I can trace back to sources, the copyrights of which have…
DDS
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11
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Who, if anyone, owns the copyright to mugshots in the United States?
In the United States, who, if anyone, owns the copyright to mugshots (or perhaps any "work", if the principles generalize) produced by federal, state, or local employees?
If there is too much variation to cover exhaustively in a single answer, a…
Jen
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11
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2 answers
Transferring public domain material into a country where it is still in copyright
I've noticed that, in Australia, books created by authors who've died before 1955 are in the public domain.
For example, all of George Orwell's works are available from the University of Adelaide: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/
It…
Adimote
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10
votes
1 answer
Is the U.S. Code copyrighted by the Government?
The age of the internet has brought all of human knowledge to our figure tips, this is only possible because of companies finding profitable reasons for storing all of this information for distribution.
Could someone make an app containing the…
User37849012643
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10
votes
2 answers
Are "slavish copies" of public domain work in the public domain?
I had previously been under the impression that the photographed reproductions of public domain artwork were copyrighted - further research has made me question whether this is always the case. I wanted to clarify whether the below is indeed an…
Random
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9
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Authorship in work dedicated to the public domain
I want to dedicate a work I created to the Public Domain using Creative Commons CC0 PD Dedication, and I was wondering how the fact that I'm the author of the work is affected.
I understand that anybody could use or redistribute my work for any…
ComputerUser121212
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9
votes
1 answer
Can patents be featured/explained in a youtube video i.e. are patent descriptions/images in public domain?
Is it legally allowed to use images, which are obtained from patent forms, possibly with modifying/coloring them or left as is, inside youtube videos? In the same vein with images how about the text i.e., are patent description texts in the public…
b.g.
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8
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Can I scan in pre-1923 photographs from books and upload them to wikipedia without violating copyright?
Arcadia Publishing has the Images of America book series, many of which have pre-1923 photographs.
Same thing for Eyewitness Books. For example they have a book on money which has images of coins and currency going back hundreds of years.
My…
neubert
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8
votes
1 answer
"Public domain": Can I sell prints of the James Webb Space Telescope?
The new telescope delivers stunning images of the cosmos which are available on NASA's web site.
The content use policy page states:
Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and material on this site…
Peter - Reinstate Monica
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8
votes
1 answer
Public Domain provisions in Norwegian law
According to this, Norway has a "joint collecting society in Norway for musicians, performing artists and phonogram producers", Gramo, that performing artists must pay a levy to Gramo when publicly performing works that are in the public…
Martijn
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8
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2 answers
Does copyright subsist in a derivative work based on public domain material?
When a person holds a copyright to a work, they have the exclusive right to create a derivative work.
If a work is instead in the public domain, can a person modify that work and then copyright the result? Or do derivative works based on public…
jcubic
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7
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2 answers
Can a library forbid me to make copies of un-copyrighted material?
There is a book published in 1878 (i.e. not copyrighted anymore) which is currently not available in the public domain. I would like to bring it into the public domain by making a scan of it and upload it to e.g. archive.org.
However, the only…
abracadabra
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