What is Public Domain? (And Celebrate Public Domain Day!)
This coffee break activity focuses on these guiding questions: What is public domain? Why does it matter? How can you tell the difference between public domain, openly licensed, and copyrighted materials?
Learning Objectives
- Define public domain
- Explore works in the public domain
- Distinguish between materials that are all rights reserved, in the public domain, and openly licensed
A Brief Recap about Copyright
To better understand and define public domain, let’s briefly recap copyright. Remember, copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. Copyright in the U.S. is automatically assigned to creators of work, with no registration necessary. U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator exclusive rights to:
- Reproduce (copy) or distribute the original work to the public (e.g., create and sell copies of a film)
- Create new works based upon the original work (e.g., make a movie based on a book), also known as “derivative works”
- Perform or display the work publicly (e.g., perform a play)
Violation of one or more of these rights is called copyright infringement. However, using limited portions of a work may be legal under “fair use” guidelines, which we will explore further in an upcoming coffee break.
What is Public Domain?
A public domain work is a creative work that is NOT protected by copyright, which means it’s free for you to use without permission. (However, in fields such as education, it’s still an ethical best practice to continue to attribute works in the public domain!) Works in the public domain are those for which intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable.
Please watch this short video (3:24 mins) by the U.S. Copyright Office that reviews public domain and why it matters:
Here are some examples of works in the public domain:
- Materials created by the U.S. Government, such as pictures taken by NASA
- Materials for which copyright protection has lapsed or expired, such as “New Hampshire” by Robert Frost (originally published in 1923)
- Works released to the public domain when they were created, such as images on Pexels
Also, some public domain works may have a symbol that indicates that it is in the public domain: a copyright symbol with a slash through it (see left). 
However, not all public domain materials include this symbol, so you will likely need to dig deeper to determine if something is in the public domain (or not). Terms of copyright protection in the U.S. have also changed over time. The Cornell University Library Copyright Information Center is a useful tool for understanding what works might fall into the public domain in the U.S.
What is the Connection Between Public Domain and Open Licenses?
In the introductory “What is OER? (And How You Can Recognize It!)” coffee break, we learned that an open educational resource is either (1) in the public domain or (2) released with copyright permissions which allows for free use and repurposing by others.
Therefore, all works in the Public Domain can be considered OER, but NOT all OERs are in the Public Domain. That’s because there are a variety of different open licenses included in OER, known as Creative Commons (CC) licenses, and any author/creator who shares OER with an CC license still reserves some rights (known as the “5 Rs”).
What is the Difference Between Public Domain and Open Licenses?
They both grant free access to the materials, but the scope and nature are different.
Open licensing does recognize clear ownership of intellectual property and the work is still protected under copyright law, whereas works in the public domain are not protected by copyright law. Therefore, users are required to follow the license requirements when using openly licensed materials.
The infographic below illustrates the differences between public domain, open license, and all rights reserved copyright. Note the spectrum arrow at the bottom of the graphic, which informs us that public domain works are considered to be the “most open” of all materials. Public Domain is on the opposite end of All Rights Reserved Copyright (the most closed when it comes to permissions), and Openly Licensed works exist in-between the two ends of the spectrum of openness.
Why it matters: Recognizing the differences between how copyrighted material, openly licensed, and public domain material can be reused and shared legally, allows us to use materials ethically, both in our personal and professional lives.
Celebrate Public Domain Day!
Public Domain Day now occurs on January 1st of each new year, when the copyright for works created in a specific year expire in the U.S., and these works join the public domain. The year 2025, for example, marks when works created in 1929 enter the public domain in the U.S., as well as sound recordings from 1924! The new public domain works can now be used and remixed in any way — surely a reason to celebrate!
- A Room of One’s Own (long-form essay), by Virginia Woolf
- A Farewell to Arms (novel), by Ernest Hemingway
- The Sound and the Fury (novel), by William Faulkner
- Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story (novel), by Oliver La Farge
- A dozen more Mickey Mouse animations (including Mickey’s first talking appearance in The Karnival Kid)
- Blackmail (motion picture), directed by Alfred Hitchcock (his first sound film)
- The character of Popeye by E. C. Segar, in “Gobs of Work” from the Thimble Theatre comic strip
- The character of Tintin by Hergé (Georges Remi), in “Les Aventures de Tintin” from the magazine Le Petit Vingtième
- Shreveport Stomp (sound recording), recorded by Jelly Roll Morton
- Krooked Blues (sound recording), recorded by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band featuring Louis Armstrong
- Singin’ in the Rain (musical composition), lyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown
- An American in Paris (musical composition), by George Gershwin
- (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue (musical composition), lyrics by Andy Paul Razaf, music by Thomas W. “Fats” Waller & Harry Brooks (a song about racial injustice from the musical Hot Chocolates)
Public Domain & Equity: Reuse of public domain works can increase equity in access to information and renewed awareness and rediscovery of cultural and scientific history, particularly regarding the achievements and contributions of people of color across different industries and fields. These historical contributions often lead to future innovations and creativity.
If you would like to further explore public domain resources, some starting points online are included on the “Find OER” page of the OER Guide for Faculty & Staff, and click on the “Public domain repositories” sub-tab.
Review: Self-Check Activities
References & Attributions
The OER Coffee Break series has original content and adaptations by Jennifer Snoek-Brown, OER Librarian, Tacoma Community College, and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
- Content & first activity adapted from “Introduction to Open Licensing” from Open Educational Resources: Basics & Beyond by Oklahoma Council for Online Learning Excellence (COLE) Member Volunteers, licensed under CC BY 4.0
- Video source from “What is Public Domain?” video by U.S. Copyright Office, Standard YouTube License
- Additional content sources from:
- “Copyright Services: Copyright Term and the Public Domain” by Cornell University Library, 2024
- “Public Domain Day” by Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law School, Duke University, is licensed under CC BY 4.0
